Premise Revisited - Educate Me

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Sean,

Quick point: don't instantly pop "reflection on character psychology" into Simulationist play. That could quite easily be Character Exploration which is then turned to whatever GNS priority you'd like.

Other quick note: the "explicit" issue is probably going to get us into trouble. For GNS talk, the only real evidence of a GNS mode in operation is the social reinforcement around the table, among the people. What gets praised? What gets picked up and developed further from person to person? What gets subtly discouraged? "Explicit Premise" would be observable, in these terms, only by excitement, dialogue, attention, and usage - not by actually verbalizing the Premise itself.

More generally, regarding Premise, it's a matter of requirement, not necessarily cause. Without Premise, no Narrativist play. With it, then maybe Narrativist play - which is to say, if Premise is embraced, developed, and resolved.

Best,
Ron

[Ian Charvill]

Story Now doesn't mean and kind of Any-Kind-Of-Story Now, it means Thematically-Charged-Story Now.  In other words:

But I need to work on trying to understand whether Story Now is always Premise Now, because that doesn't seem obvious to me.

Story Now has to equal Premise Now because all role playing games produce some kind of story (in the sense of a sequence of events) all the time.  If it doesn't equal Premise Now, then Story Now wouldn't be in any sense relevent to narrativism.

I think Raven's words bear looking at in this respect:

that is, the decisions have real, actual meaning RIGHT NOW in Story terms, rather than afterwards ("Oh look what a cool story we made" vs "Oh look what a cool story we're making").

[Lxndr]

But does every story have a premise, stated or unstated?  Do people really read novels (or write them) with the premises in mind, or do they take the premises away with them afterwards?

Where is this "Story = Moral Premise" axiom coming from?

[Marco]

Having mentioned exactly the kind of chess discussed above in a post a coupla weeks back, I'm very interested in this conversation.

When put as Sean puts it, I'm wondering: is the spark of Narrativism the existence of people 'grooving' on the question posed by premise over say, grooving on the situation involved?

If that's the case, and I make a "principled" character in a Sorceror game who has a pretty firm line as to what he will do for power--have I avoided narrativist play simply by deciding at the outset how far he'll go (he's bad--but he's not *that* bad)?

Or to make it murkier, let's say there's a scenario that "challenges" how far he'll go (an inncoent will die horribly if he doesn't break his code of ethics) but I as a player, as it turns out, am more engaged by playing out vengance agaisnt the person who put the innocent in danger than the challenge posed by the situation (and say it's simply due to the specifics of the innocent and the challenge--not that I, as a player would NEVER break my ethical stance--just that this challenge didn't happen to engage me the way it all came together during play)--then have I slipped out of Narrativism and into Sim since play, although directed towards the Premise, never resulted in a disturbing/engaging/whatever choice for me as a player that addressed the theme of the game to that point (even though the outcome--the subsequent vengance and climax were satisfying--and, seen in the whole after would be a rocking revenge story)?

I admit I've always been confused by the "Story NOW" motto--during what I'm sure is sim play, I often think "wow, what a cool story we're creating"--and further more I generally expect 'story' (rising action, moving towards climax, followed by deonmunt) at every point of play regardless of whether a visible or consistent theme is involved. I'm not saying Story NOW is false--just that as a slogan, it kinda confuses me.

-Marco

[Ron Edwards]

Hello Marco,

Deciding what your Sorcerer character will do before play isn't a decision until it's realized through play itself. At that point, it's a "real" decision, and before that, it was a possibility only. It really doesn't matter how sure you felt at the time.

Whether it's Narrativist or not depends on how emotionally committed you felt - or, to be absolutely clear, how emotionally engaged everyone involved was. (I want the discussion to stay away from single-person, single-experience GNS mode thinking. It's a social and aesthetic issue.)

Your "murky" scenario strikes me as an eminently Narrativist decision. The fact that you drove play toward what you, as a player, were most jazzed by is exactly the sort of "give-away" action I like to cite. By your description, the revenge-story did jazz you, you see.

People should try hard not to think of Premise as a pre-set or verbalized condition of play. That is getting them all tied up in knots.

Best,
Ron

[Calithena]

Aspects of my original question here are based on a category error, which some of the responses to that question actually seem to take up. Premise is present in all forms of play, and is not unique to Narrativism.

Or at least this seems to follow from this text (Ron's GNS essay):

"Exploration and its child, Premise

"The best term for the imagination in action, or perhaps for the attention given the imagined elements, is Exploration. Initially, it is an individual concern, although it will move into the social, communicative realm, and the commitment to imagine the listed elements becomes an issue of its own.

"When a person perceives the listed elements together and considers Exploring them, he or she usually has a basic reaction of interest or disinterest, approval or disapproval, or desire to play or lack of such a desire. Let's assume a positive reaction; when it occurs, whatever prompted it is Premise, in its most basic form. To re-state, Premise is whatever a participant finds among the elements to sustain a continued interest in what might happen in a role-playing session. Premise, once established, instils the desire to keep that imaginative commitment going."

---------------

Let's assume that this is in fact what we have been talking about this whole time. Some points:

- The definition clearly allows for multiple premises; there need not be just one thing that sustains interest. Less coherent designs exploit this by having several intriguing elements which players may drift between.

- Attraction to Story is itself a Premise in this sense, which can be defined loosely or tightly, consciously or unconsciously, and does not require prior commitments in the domain of literary theory to untangle.

- If this is so, why have we, where we includes several persons who understand this stuff much better than I do, spent all this time wondering about whether stories had to have a conflict or a moral center, or what a moral center is, etc.? Doesn't matter; leave that to the literary theorists. Or rather, it does matter, but it's not essential to the assessment of Premise. When Ian says "Story Now" means "Thematically Charged Story Now", I don't think that expresses anything more than a preference for a certain kind of story - at the level of understanding Premise, anyway. At the level of narrativism-facilitating game design, though, there is a subtle shift here.

- When you move from game analysis to game design, and you are trying to design a narrativist game, the coherence of the game seems to require that you restrict the space of possible stories to stories of a particular type that you expect your game to create. (It doesn't HAVE to, but if it doesn't, there is the danger of another kind of incoherence: player A wants stories of kind x and player B wants stories of kind y; pouting ensues.) The most straightforward way, maybe the only way, to do this is to figure out a Kind of story, where Kinds can be organized in a variety of ways but are perhaps best organized by Theme, that you want your game to facilitate telling.

- So then: in designing a Narrativist game, which is a particular thing, you're going to have a particular kind of story, and attraction to that kind of story is going to be the Premise of playing the game in Ron's sense above. One category error that I and others posting on this thread have made is to conflate the Themes which determine the kinds of story in question with the Premise that that kind of story is attractive to the player of the game.

No?

[Calithena]

If the previous judgments are right, I'd like to go after some text of Ron's a little harder.

"Think of Premise as an unstable, intriguing, values-charged issue which a fictional situation has invoked."

You must mean the Premises of particular instances of Narrativist play, not Premise more broadly. Then you go on to write:

"Narrativist play absolutely relies upon establishing such a Premise and upon hitting those decision/resolution points during play."

Maybe. This depends on what literary theory ultimately determines a story to be. My ideas on this are fairly open-ended.

However different things can drive a story at different points. I appreciate Story Now as a corrective to authorial wandering, but as a dogma which says: get the Theme back in here as fast as possible at all times, I just don't agree. It depends on whether the story needs the theme right now. And in the process of writing or storytelling, sometimes the author is flying blind, chasing meaning, developing the theme quite unconsciously. I don't think this is what you're saying, exactly, but this is at least the dangerous misreading that we're flirting with.

Now, in narrativist play of a particular game, like Sorcerer, which has a particular theme, "How far will you go etc.", the application of Story Now will be e.g. to constantly spur the players back to their Kickers and their goals, and the gamemaster to create agonizing conflicts and compromises along the lines of the game's theme. The Premise of playing Sorceror, at least in part, is that that theme attracts you. And I've conceded above that coherent narrative design will probably focus on a kind of story, and that one good way - maybe the best way - to break stories into kinds is by theme. But there's nothing in the nature of narrative at the level of production, at least without additional argument, that requires us to think this is the only possibility; and we also need an additional argument in game design theory to tell us that non-Thematic story-kinds can't provide a good general basis for narrativist games as well.

[Valamir]

Sean, I'm left wondering if perhaps you missed the post I made early on in this thread where I attempted to give you some historical context for the use of premise here.

There was a time when premise as a term was applied more broadly than it is now.  And for a variety of reasons (as you've inadvertantly stumbled into your self) the multiple useages caused too much confustion.  The parts that you're quoting about "premise" above are now referred to as Creative Agenda.  

The Simulationist Creative Agenda (or Sim Premise) is now increasingly referred to as "the right to dream.  The Gamist Creative Agenda (or Gamist Premise) is now increasingly referred to as "step on up" and the Narrativist Creative Agenda (or Narrativist Premise) is now increasingly referred to as "Story Now".

In the past the word Premise was used to mean Creative Agenda in general and Story Now in particular both.  Which is why it was confusing.

Now the term Premise is used less often, and when it is, it generally refers to Narrativist Premise.


Narrativism is defined as that style of play who's Creative Agenda is Story Now...the Narrativist Premise.  Story Now means "Thematically Charged".  Period.  Its a tautological feature of the definition.  If you are playing with a Creative Agenda that is not thematically charged.  Congratulations.  You would be one of many players enjoying the Simulationist or Gamist Creative Agendas.

When Ian says "Story Now" means "Thematically Charged Story Now", I don't think that expresses anything more than a preference for a certain kind of story - at the level of understanding Premise, anyway

Exactly.  And that certain kind of story that it expresses a preference for is Narrativism.

I think you are confounding several ideas here.

A game heavy in narrative does not equal narrativism, despite the similar word roots.

[Calithena]

Okay - so I got my terminology backwards. This is helpful, and also explains why Ron seemed to be saying two different things at once.

However, there is still a disagreement here - but it is a disagreement not at the level of gaming theory, but at the level of literary theory. If Story Now is the Narrativist Creative Agenda, then Thematic Charge is only essential to it to the degree that Theme is essential to Storytelling.

I have offered the view that Theme may be more essential to the proper design of a good Narrativist play-facilitating system than it is to Narrativism proper.

I may be wrong - as you point out, I was wrong in my use of Premise here, and now need to change some posts, though I'll leave these as is because I think the dialogue is good - but I am not confused, about that particular point at least. (At least in the absence of argument at the level of literary theory, not gaming theory.)

[Calithena]

In the earlier posts in this thread, I did confound several ideas. But the two posts before yours no longer confound them in this way, they only use the wrong terminology. The question is whether they express any correct ideas.

Narrativism IN GENERAL should not express a preference for any KIND of story. It should be about roleplaying which focuses on the creation of story and puts that at the front and center of play (Story Now!).

The design of a particular game which facilitates Narrativist play probably should express a preference for particular kinds of story, however: this will be part of what gives that game its integrity and coherence as a game.

[Valamir]

If Story Now is the Narrativist Creative Agenda, then Thematic Charge is only essential to it to the degree that Theme is essential to Storytelling.

.

Hmmm, to this I can only recommend "The Art of Creative Writing" by Lajos Egri which is where much of Ron's framework on the importance of Premise and Theme to storytelling comes from.

I have offered the view that Theme may be more essential to the proper design of a good Narrativist play-facilitating system than it is to Narrativism proper.

I am uncertain how to parse this sentence.  To my eye these look like synonomous statements.  I'm not sure what distinction you're drawing between a "good Narrativist play facilitating system" and "Narrativism proper".

Narrativism IN GENERAL should not express a preference for any KIND of story. It should be about roleplaying which focuses on the creation of story and puts that at the front and center of play (Story Now!).

And here you've stumbled in one of the other big Forge landmines...the word story...   If you browse the older threads a little you'll encounter several admonishments (only slackly followed) to avoid use of the word story since as a word it means so many different things as to be all but useless as a label with any precision.

It may help you to think of "Story Now" as a hyphenated word: "Story-Now" (which I think it should be.)


"Story Now" does not mean:  Some form of story expressed currently in time.  Its "Story-Now" one specific slice of the entire category of story.

Simulationist play can focus on the creation of story.  Gamist play can (with some juggling) focus on the creation of story.  Where story is the general sense of an ongoing narrative of events.  Neither focuses on "Story-Now" which is the specific type of story which is "Thematically Charged" and associated with Narrativist Play.

Personal Note:   I'm not a huge fan of the cutsy "Story Now", "Step on Up", labels precisely because they just open up more places where people can get confused as to what they mean.  Unfortuneately from my perspective, these slogans seem to be on the way to becoming standard.

[Calithena]

Narrativism is a mode of play, which we abstract from certain kinds of gaming situation. Some games facilitate that mode of play, others do not.

Story now! is Narrativism's slogan.  It means: story first; direct your play towards the creation of story.

Filling that out depends on what a story is. I don't want to get into that question here. But only on the basis of a belief not only that all stories (or worthwhile stories, etc.) have themes, which I might agree with, but the belief that actual storytelling as a real-time thing is best served in each moment by putting that theme front and center, which I doubt, can you claim that Theme Now or Premise Now is an essential part of that mode of play.

On the other hand, it seems pretty clear to me that selecting a Theme or Premise may be the best way of designing a game that facilitates Narrativist play. In this case, that Theme or Premise is going to have whatever relation to the storytelling that people give it, and will often be central to what that particular game is trying to accomplish.

I don't understand how Simulationist play can focus on the creation of story, except in the sense that if someone already told a story you could try to simulate or 'be in' that very story. That's not focusing on creating story, though; it's focusing on simulating it.

I think that narrowing the scope of the word 'story' lowers the objectivity of the theory (since we're trying to produce stories...) and is unnecessary, since you can just leave that part of the account up to the literary theorists, writers, and rhetoricians anyway. "Whatever a story is, it is the goal of the Narrativist mode of play and design that facilitates that mode to produce it."

[Valamir]

Story now! is Narrativism's slogan. It means: story first; direct your play towards the creation of story.

No.  See that's what I was trying to address in the last part above.  That's not what it means.

It means "direct your play towards the creation of thematically charged story"  (where it is understoond that "direct" here does not necessarily mean an active concious direction on the part of the player)

You're tripping over the word "story" and taking that to mean "a linked sequence of narrative events".  And that's not what it means for Narrativism.  

Can you have stories...good stories...interesting, and entertaining stories that aren't thematically charged.  Yes.  You'll find them in story oriented Sim and Gamist play.

Narrativism is NOT the umbrella which encompasses all story.  It isn't.

[Calithena]

Well, now we know what we disagree on.

I agree that story is present (always or usually) in all forms of gaming - no surprise there. I think your claim about focus is a stretch, though; and I think the definition of Narrativism holds up better and makes more sense without this (to me) artificial restriction.

I will continue to read what you and others have to say about this, though, and I will let you know if or when I change my mind.

[Valamir]

I think that narrowing the scope of the word 'story' lowers the objectivity of the theory (since we're trying to produce stories...) and is unnecessary, since you can just leave that part of the account up to the literary theorists, writers, and rhetoricians anyway. "Whatever a story is, it is the goal of the Narrativist mode of play and design that facilitates that mode to produce it."

I'm really not sure why or how this is giving you trouble.  The THEORY isn't narrowing the scope of the word "story" at all.  Narrativism is about 1 specific type of story.  Other equally valid types of stories can be found elsewhere in the theory.  

This isn't that complicated.  I'm not sure what background of literary analysis you're attempting to bring to bear here, but perhaps you need to leave a couple of those preconceptions at the door for a while because, they seem to be impeding your understanding.

Edited to note:  Ouch.  I didn't mean that to come out sounding that nasty.  Forgive the tone, I meant that to be a constructive thought.