Premise Revisited - Educate Me

[Calithena]

Ralph, I understand the definition you're using. Without further argument, I don't see any reason to accept it. We're talking about something real here - modes of role-playing activity - and that this whole theory is based on the claim that that activity breaks down into three different modes.

Which means that we have to appeal to the reality of Narrativist play in order to decide how central Premise or Theme are to that creative agenda. It's not something we get to just define in whatever terms seem convenient to us.

You appear to believe that this mode of play always centers around a Theme. On the surface, this claim appears to me incredible. A more restricted claim is that Narrativist play would be better if the Theme was kept more present in mind during story-making decisions in play. That seems prima facie plausible, but not without the discussion in literary theory (about which I know relatively little, BTW) that I'm trying to avoid. An even more restricted claim, with which I happen to agree, would be that putting the theme front and center in a game design that facilitates narrativist play is a good way to design such a game, and a good way to make sure that those who play that game have a shared Creative Agenda.

(Hey, man, I love it when it gets hot, and I know you're a stand-up guy. Keep swinging away if what I'm saying isn't working for you. But I'm going to get off for a while now and see what people have to say about all this stuff.)

[Valamir]

Ralph, I understand the definition you're using. Without further argument, I don't see any reason to accept it. We're talking about something real here - modes of role-playing activity - and that this whole theory is based on the claim that that activity breaks down into three different modes.

Which means that we have to appeal to the reality of Narrativist play in order to decide how central Premise or Theme are to that creative agenda. It's not something we get to just define in whatever terms seem convenient to us.

Well...its not my definition.  Its the cornerstone definition of what Narrativism is.  It can be defined in any terms Ron likes, because Ron invented the category.  Its not a question of going out and saying..."here's 50 people playing narrativistly...lets see how many of them are actually creating thematically charged stories to determine how relevant that is to narrativist play".

Thematically charged stories is the key distinction that makes a play style narrativist to begin with.  If there are 50 people playing, we can go out, see how many of them are actually creating thematically charged stories, and THOSE are the people playing narrativist.  The rest are not.  They're playing in one of the other modes.



All roleplaying starts with the basic foundation of Exploration:  Character, Setting, Situation, System and Color.  The three Creative Agendas are about priorities expressed through actual play above and beyond basic exploration.

The Gamist Creative Agenda says "yeah, we're into Exploration, but we want a little competition, a little test of skill, a little mano-a-mano...a little "step on up" along with it.

The Simulationist Creative Agenda says "yeah, we're totally into this Exploration.  We don't need or want anything else.  We want to focus on Exploring Character, Setting, Situation, System, and Color and see what kind of stories fall out from our "right to dream".

The Narrativist Creative Agenda says "yeah, we're into Exploration.  Character, Setting, Situation, and Color are all important ingredients, and System is going to help take us there.  But for maximum enjoyment that's not enough.  We want a nice "thematic charge" in our play.  We want some powerful choices centered on decisions of moral ambiguities.  We don't want to play to portray a theme.  We want to create a theme through our play.  We want "Story-Now".


That's it.  Those are the three GNS modes.   I think maybe trying to attack the issue from the direction of "what is story", and "what are the different kinds of stories out there" is just a giant obstacle here.

But I'm going to get off for a while now and see what people have to say about all this stuff.)

Good idea, I could use a breather ;-)

[C. Edwards]

Hey Sean,

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.

Well, without the focus (on Theme) there is no Narrativism. The foci are what designate the three uber-categories of play, G, N, and S.

You appear to believe that this mode of play always centers around a Theme. On the surface, this claim appears to me incredible. A more restricted claim is that Narrativist play would be better if the Theme was kept more present in mind during story-making decisions in play.

It does always center around Theme, THAT is what makes it Narrativism. The phenomenon was observed to exist, and then the tag of Narrativism was attached to it. Keep in mind though that we're not necessarily talking about one overarching theme that encompasses the whole of play. The Theme being focused upon (generated) could change several times during play, from situation to situation, from character to character.

Also, as Ralph points out, the focus on Theme need not be a conscious decision by the participants. So, while keeping Theme-focused decision making in mind may serve to heighten the experience of Narrativist  play, it is not a necessary component of Narrativism.

Hope that helps at least a little.

-Chris

[edit] to note the crosspost with Ralph

[Calithena]

Only if the propositions

All stories have a theme.

The intentional creation of story involves direct attention to theme.

are both true. The first probably is. The second may be as well, but only in a more attenuated sense: in particular, attention to theme in every phase of story-creation (activity aimed at story-creation) may or may not be a good way for authors to think about the creation of their stories.

You're free to define your terms as you like, but as a good Aristotelian, I'm going to hold out for definitions that carve reality at the joints. I can't know whether this one does that unless I know more about stories and how they are created than I do right now.

[lumpley]

Sean!  Have you read Egri?

-Vincent

[Marco]

Hello Marco,

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.

Best,
Ron

I read this carefully and have been following the conversation closely as it maps to some of my own questions.

I'm stll turning over the response (which I think is a good one)--and trying to "nail it down."

In the hypotheitical, the way I see it, the choice that is being built towards in the first part of the play session turns out to be an anti-climax (in terms of agonizing over the decision) and the precieved interest and focus is on the playing out of the outcome of the choice. To me this seems to be an explorational focus on situation more than premise (and this is one reason that my ability to perform GNS analysis at the table seems to be nil--I don't know how to distinguish between exploration of situation vs exploration of theme over a period of time if the play evidences a story-like-structure--I realize it probably has something  to do with "who is making the decisions" but in my world the players and the GM are both agreeing to any decision made during play if both are still at the table after it).

From my perspective this ties directly into the above post as to whether or not

The intentional creation of story involves direct attention to theme.

*

-Marco
*which is, in itself a problematic sentence since the "attention to theme" is not a result of intentional attention to theme or conscious attention to theme but simply "attention to theme" as seen by the observer.

[Calithena]

No, I haven't read Egri. The point I'm trying to make though is that we ought to be able to make the points we want to make about Narrativism, as a modality of game-playing involving attention to story-creation, without waiting on the results of the theory of literature or story-creation itself in order to fill that out. Obviously, what we believe about stories and narrative will effect our conception of narrativism, but it seems to me that we ought to be able to separate:

- Narrativism as a mode of game-play

- The views of game design and narrative itself that help game designers produce a game that facilitates narrativist play.

- Advice that helps players realize their goal of playing in the narrativist mode, whether more generally or in the context of a specific narrativist game.

I'm confident that attention to theme or premise is excellent advice for the second of these, at least in the sense that several of the narrativist games I like are designed explicitly around this. It seems to me that we can define the first in terms of story and let the relation of premise or theme to that fall out of our theory of literature. The third one is where I'm stumbling a little: it seems to me that reading Story Now! as Theme Now! (in the sense that the slogans seem primarily to be aimed at addressing the third question) is not Universally good advice for producing stories, though it should certainly be mentioned as one centrally important approach, and is certainly excellent advice in many cases. But for this third question it's not just a matter of what we observe; this is a question about what participants Ought to Do to realize play in the narrative mode.

Marco, thanks for saying that: it's nice to know I'm not just wasting everyone's time, something I live in fear of. Even if I'm completely wrong about all of this, at least there's one other person who's thought process will have been helped by my taking the time to write this stuff.

[Calithena]

Let me now make where I'm coming from even more explicit: it is EXCELLENT advice to people trying to learn how to play narrativist, or to play narrativist better, to get them to write kickers, pose thematic questions, adopt premises, and to turn back to those things again and again in play as a way of figuring out where the story is going next.

The question is just where this comes in in the theory. Is it a rational precondition of narrativist play that the participants are doing this? That's what I don't accept. Is it a rational precondition of narrativist play that the behavior of the participants is describable in these terms? Probably so, at least if you take the description over a broad enough time scale. Is it always better in all cases, in all times and in all spaces, for a participant creating a story to have these thematic questions in mind? No, not necessarily - or at least I don't think so.

What I want to resist then is that there are 'kinds' of story which narrativism in general aims at. There ARE kinds of story which particular narrativist games aim at; this is often part of what good Nar design amounts to.

[lumpley]

Sean, I didn't get it until I read Egri, but you're right, we oughta be able.

So here's my stab:

There's no "narrativist mode" of play.  Nobody's goal is to "play narrativist."

Understand "Narrativism" to be something you get out of play.  A product of play, not a way to play.  Some people's goal is for their games to give them Narrativism, so they try to set up and play their games in such a way that Narrativism comes out.  Some people want Narrativism but don't get it; lots of people get Narrativism without wanting it at all, or without even noticing it.  Certainly without ever naming it.

Narrativism means player-authored theme-addressing Exploration.  It doesn't matter what mode you play in.  Any mode that produces player-authored theme-addressing Exploration gives you Narrativism.

So you're building the definition of Narrativism upside down in your head.  There is no "modality of game-playing involving attention to story-creation" in GNS.  "Story Now" doesn't define Narrativism, it points to Narrativism, along the preexisting trajectory of Story = Premise = Moral Conflict.  Take away that trajectory and you're right, "Story Now" doesn't make any sense, it doesn't point anywhere.

The question is just where this comes in in the theory. Is it a rational precondition of narrativist play that the participants are doing this? That's what I don't accept. Is it a rational precondition of narrativist play that the behavior of the participants is describable in these terms? Probably so, at least if you take the description over a broad enough time scale. Is it always better in all cases, in all times and in all spaces, for a participant creating a story to have these thematic questions in mind? No, not necessarily - or at least I don't think so.

Exactly.

-Vincent

[Calithena]

Tempest in a teapot, perhaps.

Human behavior is goal-directed, as is the behavior of other living systems. It is a Mystery how this can be, because the behavior of non-living systems is not goal-directed, but happily this is another problem which lies outside the theory of RPGs.

If you want to name the goal Narrativism, rather than the modality of play in which player-behavior can be best described as aiming at that goal, I have no objection. I'm not sure what problem this solves, though, since the presence of goals and the presence of types of behavior which aim at those goals, or is getting frustrated in aiming at those goals, etc. are interchangeable for most purposes.

In fact, I have no objection to much of anything on this thread any more except a certain kind of emphasis, which I find potentially misleading. It misled me, and it may have misled some others on this thread on both sides of 'the' issue. Further, at least part of my revised view here was just a quibble, in that there's nothing wrong with adopting e.g. Egri's theory of story-creation as a way to flesh out what Narrativism means in RPGs.

The only question is whether conscious development of a Theme on the part of player-authors is constitutive of Narrativsim, or play-aiming-at-Narrativism, or whatever. I say no. But as soon as I say that I have to recant most of the implications anyway, since most player-authors will be helped a great deal by thinking about it in this way, and most explicitly Narrativist designs will in fact have such a Theme in place as a matter of internal coherence, whether it is stated explicitly (Sorcerer) or implied by a genre which the game intends to produce new narratives of the type of (Dying Earth).

[Gordon C. Landis]

Sean,

I think you've got it exactly.  I'll throw in my own re-statement - I've gone round on a few of these issues myself, in other threads, private messages, and my own abused brain.  Others are probably more qualified, but hopefully this is at least helpful.

Yes, the presence or absence of the "goal" to have Nar play (by which I think you are pointing to the "intention" issue that comes up here from time to time) is entirely irrelevant to the assesment of a particular instance of play as Nar.  Either the real humans involved end up prioritizing the creation of themed-story during play, or they don't.  They may call it Nar play, or exploring another world/character, or just playing an RPG - that's not what matters.  What matters is what happens in play - what is observed to occur in that social interaction.

But you're also right that that "pure" analysis really doesn't matter.  Because as game designers and/or players, we can go right ahead and say that we want to acheive N, or G, or S, and then look at what the best ways to do so are.  All the theory requires is recognition that the intention to acheive something is NOT the same as having actually done so.  "It must be Nar because I like Nar and don't like Sim or Game" is nonsense.

Goal/intention does not matter (as in: you can assume it is there, or not - your choice) for categorizing what we see in play.  But that does NOT mean goal/intention has no meaning or place in how we use GNS in general.  In an earlier post you outline three things that we should be able to seperate (paraphrase - 1) analysis of play, 2) designer intent, 3) in-play tools/techniques), and that seperation looks right to me.  Goals/intent are absent (in that they are not part of the analysis, though you can assume they exist somewhere if you want to) in 1), but they are certainly relevant to 2) and 3).

And all that is essentially a re-statement of your last post, as far as I can tell, so . . . let me know if I'm wrong on that,

Gordon

[greyorm]

Honestly, what I was struck by, Sean, is that you seem to be approaching the issue bass ackwards -- you appear to be arguing that Narrativism can't just be about "theme-based stories" because stories can exist without theme.

But the problem is that the definition is Narrativism, rather than the reverse -- "Narrativism" is only used to define what actually happens, what is actually observed. That is, "Ok, we see this happening, what should we call it?" rather than, "We have this term, can we apply it to this behavior?"

That's weird, but that's the best way I think I can explain what I'm observing as the problem with your approach.

[Calithena]

Gordon - thanks. I have made a lot of mistakes in this thread, but I agree with what you wrote about what I wrote. So we'll see if that holds up.

Greyorm - sorry if my multiple posts have confused you. Remember - the title of this thread was self-indulgent, 'educate me.' Whatever value there is in the thread comes from the similarity of my lack of understanding and the process by which I get to a better understanding to those of other people, and what the argument reveals. I try to be as clear as I can because I find this is helpful.

Responses to what you wrote: I don't know if 'stories can exist without theme'. I'm inclined to say that they can't, actually, but there may be some weird cases that challenge this assumption.

I am saying that Theme and Premise ought only to enter into the definition of Narrativism insofar as they enter into the definition of Story - that they only get into the definition by way of the story-vector.

Saying "the definition IS narrativism" doesn't help anything. I'm disagreeing about the goals of the behavior, but only a little. I'm saying that "Story Now" is a good slogan and all this stuff about Theme and Premise only comes in along with it, as part of a theory of stories, which apparently can be traced back to Egri.

Since stories HAVE themes, probably in all cases that matter, it can be good PRACTICAL advice for the player or game designer to focus on theme as a way to create the story in play or, especially, to create a game that facilitates a certain kind of storytelling. But 'can' doesn't mean 'is'. There may be other ways to achieve the same goal - I don't know.

Look - here's an analogy to my point. There are these recent psychological studies that claim that monkeys and babies have 'the concept of number' because when they're shown physical collections of different numbers of identical objects, they recognize a difference. The 'inference' here is that because the physical situation is properly described as a situation where there's a difference in number, and the monkeys and babies recognize a difference in the physical situation, they recognize a difference in number. This is bullshit, though. All we know they are registering is a difference in visual stimulus - not that they categorize it in terms of number, or 'have a concept of number', or any of that stuff. There is a category error here - mistaking true descriptions of reality for reality itself.

All that's left of my original, confused remarks on Premise, Theme, and Story (and BTW I'm no longer clear that there's any point at which Ron at least makes any statements about any of this I'd call confused - he's very careful and very lucid) is just this point. There is a gap between the claim that Stories have Premises and the claim that being clear about Premise in the present situation is always the best way to make a Story. The first claim is a claim that is correct at the level of description, but the psychological reality of the storyteller may require a variety of different approaches. Or, as Pablo Picasso used to say, "don't talk to the driver."

It's a great advance to realize that gamers have different things they want to realize in play and to encourage gamers to be clear about what they're looking for with one another. Being self-conscious about motives for gaming in the real-world environment is a tremendous step. The miserable gamer can rob his unconscious on behalf of his ego, just like Freud said, by being explicit about the desires he has not been able to express in the context of his past gaming experiences.

But it's a whole other thing - and Freud knew it - to claim that story-making itself always proceeds from this same kind of clarity. Often it doesn't. Ham-fisted application of Premise and/or Theme as a proactive story-making technique is no solution to the problem. These are essential, important, valuable insights that are worth articulating, and even better as correctives during bogdown than they are in general. But they are practical in character, and not absolute driving factors of story-creation in all cases. What gets created can always, or almost always, be described in these terms after the fact, but that's not the same thing, and to think it is is to mistake description for reality.

Hey! I'm 34 years old today and my wife is asleep on the couch, so I've gotten sucked back in to the Forge. It's been fun meeting all of you, and I appreciate the generous donation of your time to my education here. All I can say is I hope that some of you are getting at least a little back out of it, if only a more precise understanding of various sorts of cognitive error a person can make in grappling with GNS. Happy Halloween!

Best,

Sean

[C. Edwards]

Hey Sean,

There is a gap between the claim that Stories have Premises and the claim that being clear about Premise in the present situation is always the best way to make a Story. The first claim is a claim that is correct at the level of description, but the psychological reality of the storyteller may require a variety of different approaches. Or, as Pablo Picasso used to say, "don't talk to the driver."

Well, here's the thing. Maybe "stories" do always have Theme, I dunno and it's not really relevant. What you seem to be missing is that actual play of an RPG and the writing of a "story" are not one and the same, in process and often output.

The writer usually writes with the creation of an engaging narrative as the goal. To that end, many literary devices are used, quite purposefully as often as not. The duty of "story creation" in all its parts falls to the writer, who can bend events and situations this way and that to fit the end goal.

Now, let's take a look at Narrativist play. When it is done purposefully, with a focus on Theme (by one name or another) in mind, the process AND the end product often resemble that of the writer. The collaboration between multiple participants changes the dynamic, but the creation of a "good story" is the primary goal and the decisions made by the participants during play are made with that goal in mind (even if they've never heard of Narrativism).

With G and S, the focus is different. If you look back at the product of play you may very well see that the end product was a "story", but creation of that story was not the point of play for the participants. Theme may appear to be present in the end product but it's not there on purpose. During play the participants were focused on goals other than than Story-Now (theme charged play).

So, even though the end product of play may look similar (although it often doesn't), the process of play (the dynamics and decision making) are very different.

Usually, for the sake of getting the ideas across, G, N, and S are discussed in relatively pure forms. The reality though is that a single individual may run the gamut in the basis for their decisions during play, with only the dominant mode(s) gaining notice. It's fairly impossible after all to determine the motives behind someone elses decisions. That's why observable behavior over an indeterminate amount of time (an "Instance" of play) is necessary to make a good diagnosis concering playstyle.

-Chris

[greyorm]

Yeah, I thought that was going to completely bypass you, I wasn't sure it was clear enough or coherent enough. So let's try again, hopefully this time I'll nail it more clearly:

There is a gap between the claim that Stories have Premises and the claim that being clear about Premise in the present situation is always the best way to make a Story.

"Story" is the problem. Forget about it. Make "Story" go away. We aren't talking about "Story," even though we use the word. So, for now, forget about "Story."

What Narrativism is...is Theme/Premise.

Forget Story. Story is hanging you up. Narrativism isn't about a Story...Story happens, but it isn't important when we're discussing what Narrativism is.

The actual key to Narrativism is a Narrativist Premise. That's what Narrativism is: exploring and riffing on the eventual Theme of play, whether consciously or unconsciously.

An unconscious, by way of example, occurs in the D&D game I'm DM for and which I've discussed here in Actual Play has an unspoken Narrativist Premise going on all over the place. Never been discussed by the players, though.

Story, when we're talking about Narrativism, is more or less another name for Premise. So Narrativism is about Premise; and, tangentially, that's why we don't use Story so much any more, because it carries all this baggage with it.

This is what I meant by you approaching the issue backwards; you've locked-on to the idea of "Story" and tried to examine Narrativism and its definition in light of that term, in the focus of Story via Premise when that isn't it at all. The term/terminology itself is hanging you up. It isn't Story via Premise. It's just Premise. That's Narrativism.

So, when you say Theme/Premise should only enter into the definition of Narrativist play via their use in Story, you've missed what Narrativism is by focusing on the wrong end of things.

The Premise defines Story for Narrativism. Not the other way 'round.

That is, Story only enters into the definition of Narrativism insofar as it enters into the definition of Premise - it only gets into the definition by way of the Premise vector. So, like I said, stop thinking about "Story" at all.

Examine Narrativism as the result of conscious or unconscious application of a Premise to actual, independent instances of play, rather than as the creation of a Story via a Premise.

Hey! I'm 34 years old today

Congrats! Same birthday as my father.