Fatalism and Narrativsm

[Gordon C. Landis]

John,  yep. The specific reference thread I linked to dealt with a game in which, by virtue of a character creation technique, would produce theme via purely causal play. In other words, during character generation, the characters were constructed with such thematic strength that, if they behaved "as expected," they *would not deviate* from the dramatic course. Simply doing "what my guy would do" was sufficient to produce theme.

But not sufficient (in and of itself) to produce Nar play.  That depends upon the participants groovin' on that theme AS theme (well, as Nar premise/Story Now, I guess), and not just enjoying the consequences of how "what my guy would do" plays out.

At least, that's how I understand it,

Gordon

[Gordon C. Landis]

The question is, can all that still result in Narrativist play?

The answer is - sure, it possibly can.  Because what we ask when looking at play to determine if G, N or S is happening is "what is being prioritized by the group as they play?"  If we see people reveling in the issues that arise because Simon always does Y, it's Nar.  If they're grooving on how neat it is that Simon is just like the typical hard-case character in the genre/setting in use - it's Sim.  

I don't think it's that simple.  For example, Pendragon may easily be absolutely full of moral issues -- and the players revel in it.  However, it is apparently not Narrativist because the others in the group are involved in the PC's choices (by enforcing the Personality Traits and Passions).  

I'm still sorting this out myself, but that's what I understand at present.

Hi John,

I assume you're building from this quote in Ron's earlier post:

What I'm saying is that at this point of play, we do not know whether Gunnar is (a) a take-no-shit man who has been acting "against himself" for a while now and is thus ready to explode, or (b) a wimp, despite his physical prowess, who's been showing his true colors all along lately. Even the player, who might well have been playing Gunnar exactly as he imagined him incontrovertibly to be in these terms, doesn't know until the decision-points of play really happen. Even if the player just rolls along and plays Gunnar "as conceived," without even self-examining the significance of the decision, that is still a decision.

That would be Narrativist.

The non-Narrativist version is simply that everyone knows and reinforces, during play, the written-down or verbalized agreement that Gunnar is X and that is all there is to it. Even a more complex game system like Pendragon, in which shifts from X to Y and back are explicitly structured, falls into this category.

I don't think Ron was pointing to the "enforcement" role of other players in the decision as a discriminator at all - rather, he was pointing at whether the participants were engaging with the "moral issues" as actual moral issues (as Nar premise), or if they treat them as interesting paramaters to the character and/or situation that must be followed.  As I said in my last post - groovin' on Nar premise/Story Now, or just enjoying the consequences of how that kind of charcater/situation plays out.

It occurs to me that what's problematic here is some variation of the discussions of the Impossible Dream.  Situations where most of play - almost ALL of play, maybe - is driven by attention to the Dream (Sim, prioritization of an Explored element), but there's a "Nar Moment" -perhaps, literally just one moment - where the players suddenly stop focusing attention upon Sim, and suddenly look at things through Story Now-colored glasses, and (e.g.) start patting each other on the back for creating a story that did such a neat job of addressing a premise.

So - is that "fatalistic" play?  Is it Nar play?  Can that one Nar Moment make play Nar rather than (in this case) Sim?  As I understand it, the answer is (rather annoyingly, but understandably, IMO): it depends.  

Whoops - I may have left one important bit out.  As I understand it, if that Nar Moment only exists as an *evaluation* of play, and isn't incorporated into how play continues - if the premise/theme evaluation of play by the participants really is precisely like that of a reader with a book (viewer with a movie, etc.) - then it's not Nar play.  That's the Now part of Story Now.  To truly be a NAR Moment, that moment must resonate throughout the explored environment.  Otherwise, it's just a theme an observer can derive from Sim or Game-prioritized play.

Not that that will always help with the "it depends" issue, but sometimes it will.  

Again, just my understanding of things,

Gordon

[Ian Charvill]

I think the key is simply the enjoyment of premise as distinct from theme.

Enjoying Gunnar as an exemplar of, say, doomed violence is perfectly compatible with sim.  Enjoying the fact that you get to choose whether Gunnar is an exemplar of doomed violence - whether that decision happens at character generation or at a later point - is more compatible with narrativism.

That there are a bunch of times when it's not really explicit what people are grooving off - which is why, I think, the 'instance of play' stuff is so vague - and that just means there's a bunch of times when GNS is irrelevent to what's happening at the table.  Any theory is going to get a bit shaky if you try to apply it to everything.

[Paganini]

Enjoying Gunnar as an exemplar of, say, doomed violence is perfectly compatible with sim.  Enjoying the fact that you get to choose whether Gunnar is an exemplar of doomed violence - whether that decision happens at character generation or at a later point - is more compatible with narrativism.

Yeah! I like this. Because Lumpley was absolutely prioritizing premise in that game... it just wasn't a moment-by-moment prioritization. It was a pre-prioritization to ensure that premise would indeed be addressed during play.

OK, now moving on from here, I'm going to get a little pervy. Turin was basically doomed, if you recall. His future was fortold. The character was not making choices - he was fated.

So let's extrapolate to an RPG. We've got a character. All the player know exactly what that character will do / what will happen to that character. It's not a matter of making the same choice over and over, there's literally no choice involved. Can we still have narrativis play by allowing the *players* to address premise through *player choice?* Let's say that the characters are hardwired to act a certain way when faced with a particular thematic choice (the premise to be addressed), but that that players are given directorial control over situation so that the consequences of each thematic moment is up to the players. The choice that the character makes will always be the same... but the players get to decide what that choice *means.*

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi M. J. and Stuart,

Thanks for the example and clarification of the metatextual stuff.

I woke up this morning and thought this:

All the "Prisoner of Zenda" options listed are, in fact, ethical and moral choices.  Even the last one, where the character hewes to the original tale.  The trick is, we can focus on it being a variation of the story, but we don't have to.  Either way, it's still a bunch of ethical and moral choices. In this regard, it is, if the group is gathered 'round grooving on the moral and ethical choices, feeding each other options, laughing and complimenting each other on the decisions made and such, Narrativist play.

Now, if the group is gathered 'round, and someone blows a die roll and doesn't successfully impress upon someone he really is the king, and the group's reaction is a delighted "Oh, no!" and everyone scrambles to figure out how to get the "story" back "on track," we have what some folks here are calling Fatalist RPG.  But the truth is that its also a slice of Simulation play.  Really.  It doesn't stand apart from GNS.  

Although most folks get obssessed with Simulation as an attempt to simulate reality ("What if there really were elves and magic in 14th century Europe?") or the emotional implications of being My Guy in this situation, back in Chicago my group played a lot of Pendragon, CoC, Justice Inc. -- and the entire point was to create the appropriate feel of the fiction.  We were exploring the style of storytelling, and making damned sure the right "kind" of story came out of the fiction.

It took me a while going through GNS to understand that "simulating" textual concerns and not reality was still a form of simulation.  And if the gang is gathered around having a great time steering the story "back" on track with fumbles, mistakes, and innappropriate responses in scenes, (which is what would be required for M.J.'s last example if it wasn't played as Narrativism (which would simply be the characters making moral and ethical choices), then its a slice of Simulationism... I'll call it Textual Simulationism.  (I do believe the term Fatalistic RPG completely misses the boat on this matter. But that's just me.)

The moment though, the characters are engaged with the choice of how to behave (even respecting that the players or characters know blowing the story is a moral choice; ie: heroquesting), we've got the possibility of Nar play.  And to find out which, we'd need a lot more details about how the group is responding to what's going on -- where, if you will, the "fun" is.

Thus, to know whether Stuarts group was running Nar or Sim as they make their choices through playing the myth, we'd need those details.

Stuart brought up playing through "myth."  I'll remind all that I brought up heroquesting on my first post on this thread.  (Stuart, if you're not familiar with it, you might want to go check out the Hero Quest board... I think you'll find it fascinating.)  The fact that the PCs are on a mythical quest in actual myth, living out a story they already know -- a story that they can botch, that they can change -- doesn't make it about the text (simuilation) if the focus is on the choices at hand.

So first, this kind of play is in play already -- heroquest uses it, M.J. uses it, Stuart uses it.  But, second, I don't believe it is that strange or odd.  Depending on how its played, its Narrativism (whether the characters are aware they're in a story or not (and the Picard example is *exactly* this), or Sim, where the delight is the group keeping up with the story.

Oops -- and I supposed it could shade into Gamism as well, depending on how its played.  (For example, kudos being handed to players who come up with the cleverest ways to keep the story "on track.")  

Which is my whole point: I think the concern about playing a "story" -- the whole metatextual angle -- is a red haring.  What matters is how the group plays that determines what's going on in terms of GNS, not the nifty feature of playing in a "story."  (Which is, by the way, nifty.)


Now, as for the Relentless Character (the character fixed in a behavior before play begins and set there forever), which is a whole seperate issue; and the Fated Character (who is going to end up one way, no matter what choices he makes), which is a third issue...  I'm stepping back for the moment.  But let's just not try to tangle these three issues up.


Take care,
Christopher

[Ian Charvill]

So let's extrapolate to an RPG. We've got a character. All the player know exactly what that character will do / what will happen to that character. It's not a matter of making the same choice over and over, there's literally no choice involved. Can we still have narrativis play by allowing the *players* to address premise through *player choice?* Let's say that the characters are hardwired to act a certain way when faced with a particular thematic choice (the premise to be addressed), but that that players are given directorial control over situation so that the consequences of each thematic moment is up to the players. The choice that the character makes will always be the same... but the players get to decide what that choice *means.*

(Ignoring the fact that someone at some point must have made a decision about what the PC's "Fated" choice would be).

If you give the players choice of scenes in such a way that they could choose which scenes to run in order to provoke different thematic responses from the character, my money's on you would still get narrativism.

[John Kim]

Now, if the group is gathered 'round, and someone blows a die roll and doesn't successfully impress upon someone he really is the king, and the group's reaction is a delighted "Oh, no!" and everyone scrambles to figure out how to get the "story" back "on track," we have what some folks here are calling Fatalist RPG.  But the truth is that its also a slice of Simulation play.  Really.  It doesn't stand apart from GNS.  
(...further discussion snipped...)
Now, as for the Relentless Character (the character fixed in a behavior before play begins and set there forever), which is a whole seperate issue; and the Fated Character (who is going to end up one way, no matter what choices he makes), which is a third issue...  I'm stepping back for the moment.  

No, you're mistaken about what "Fatalist RPG" has been used to mean.  I coined the term earlier in the thread to refer to a game with a Relentless and Fated (as you put them) main character.  MJ corrected me by pointing out that these two qualities were separate, and I clarified that fatalist should refer to a Relentless main character regardless of whether or not the external conflict is fated.  (Maybe you missed this clarification?)  The key is that the character has a known answer to thematic questions -- i.e. the character doesn't change or grow.  

I'm not quite sure what your example is of, but it should probably go in a different topic.

[Gordon C. Landis]

So let's extrapolate to an RPG. We've got a character. All the player know exactly what that character will do / what will happen to that character. It's not a matter of making the same choice over and over, there's literally no choice involved. Can we still have narrativis play by allowing the *players* to address premise through *player choice?* Let's say that the characters are hardwired to act a certain way when faced with a particular thematic choice (the premise to be addressed), but that that players are given directorial control over situation so that the consequences of each thematic moment is up to the players. The choice that the character makes will always be the same... but the players get to decide what that choice *means.*

I'm not sure how absolute you can really be about the same choice/no choice stuff - I mean, it's always a choice, right?  A choice NOT to abandon the previously established rules/pattern/whatever.  Because there's no way to keep a person/group from saying "OK, that's it - it makes no sense to keep doing the same thing anymore.  Time for a new choice . . . "

That said, I think you point out just the right place to look here - regardless of the the "inevitability" of what's going on with the character's (or other imagined bits), the question is are the participant's (don't forget that the GM, if any, counts here too) doing stuff that's all about what the choice *means*.  E.g., continually confronting Judge Dredd with endless letter of the law vs. humanitarian slant choices.  He's always going to pick humanitarian slant, but . . . is the group noticing new angles and details about what that means?  And using that to inform the imagined environment as play contines?  That's Nar.  If they are treating the choices mostly as an issue with the effectiveness of the Judge, that's Step On Up at work.  If the choices truly are confronted simply as a way to accentuate a pre-existing motif/theme, it sounds like Sim to me.

So, possibly quite interesting issues as to what precisely is "fatalistic" and what isn't aside, I think some folks are basically agreed here - the answer to the "is it Nar?" question lies outside of the character choices.  Certain styles of character choices may work better for certain kinds of Nar play (or perhaps for certain Nar/Sim hybrids), but that's a seperate issue.

Gordon

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi John,

If you read M.J. post on the previous page of this thread about Prisoner of Zenda is, you'll find exactly what my example was about.

As for the misuse of the term, I apologize for apparently misunderstanding you, but I can only add, it's been tossed around rather lightly by many people on this thread.  M.J.'s Zenda example, for example, doesn't only posit that the ending is fated, but that the entire story is followed as closely as possible.  You'll notice that Stuart added at this point that that's exactly what *he* had been talking about.  You'll notice that people are still talking about Relentless charactes and Fated characters on the same thread.  I was simply trying to keep all these points clear to make sure they didn't get tangled again.

I certainly appreciate your efforts to do the same.

Oh, and did I miss the clarification?  I've just reviewed all the posts form M.J.'s to mine.  If it's there, I'm sorry I missed it.  Again.

Now.  Let's end this nonsense, shall we?

You seem obsessed with this distinction about characters who change and grow and those who don't -- and that stories with characters who don't change or grow don't have a premise.

I need you to keep in mind three things: a) RPG stories usually have several  characters b) plenty of stories (that clearly have a premise) have characters that don't change, and c) Theme in a story is often revealed by contrasting how different characters respond to the premise.

Examples of characters who don't change are: Beowulf.  Sonny from "The Godfather."  Hanibal Lector.

These characters don't change.  They don't grow.  They are themselves through and through...  Are you telling me that there's no premise that gets answered in these stories?

I'd like it if everone could stand back a moment and let John answer... Because this threads been jerking everyone around.  Let's get down to brass talks.

Beowulf.   The Godfather.  Silence of the Lambs.  All contain characters that don't grow or change.  Do they have a premise?  Yes or no.

Christopher

[John Kim]

Examples of characters who don't change are: Beowulf.  Sonny from "The Godfather."  Hanibal Lector.

These characters don't change.  They don't grow.  They are themselves through and through...  Are you telling me that there's no premise that gets answered in these stories?  

I'd like it if everone could stand back a moment and let John answer...  

Yes, of course they have a premise that gets answered.  (I haven't actually seen The Godfather, and I disagree about Hannibal Lector -- but that's beside the point, I think.)  

The question is, how do you classify the equivalent in role-playing?  You seem to be implying that if Premise is addressed, that this implies the role-playing is Narrativist.  But that's false.  For example, suppose I have a game where the GM tells the players what to do, and they merely improvise dialogue and little details.  I direct them to reproduce the events of the Godfather.  Now the game has produced a narrative which clearly addresses a premise, but as I understand it the game isn't Narrativist.  As I understand it, this is true even if the players are all grooving on how premise-addressing the narrative is.  

The question in doubt is the fatalist case.  Here the player has a choice as far as character.  She defines what the answer to the Premise will be, but it is decided at the start of the campaign at character-creation time.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi John,

In your post, you commit a shift of topic which is very common - and fatal to the discussion.

For example, suppose I have a game where the GM tells the players what to do, and they merely improvise dialogue and little details. I direct them to reproduce the events of the Godfather. Now the game has produced a narrative which clearly addresses a premise, but as I understand it the game isn't Narrativist. As I understand it, this is true even if the players are all grooving on how premise-addressing the narrative is.

It's not Narrativist because the term applies to role-playing. When you say "the game has produced a narrative," you are referring to its imaginary events and their sequence of occurrence. I am, in my GNS terminology, referring to the role-playing as human (real-life) activity. The players you describe are not playing Narrativist because they are not addressing Premise, they are witnessing it, and nothing more.

When you shift like that, you undermine the whole dialogue. I'm not saying you mean to, or anything like that ... but that's what happens.

I can't put it any more simply than that: you are not describing Narrativist play. The "narrative content" (for lack of a better word or term) of the imagined events is irrelevant. I don't see anything remotely controversial, ambiguous, or even vague in saying so.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

Ron,

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying--mainly because I don't see why you're saying John is changing the topic. John plainly and clearly says it's not narrativist. He's not changing the topic, he's in agreement with you (his quote in the section you quoted: "but as I understand it the game isn't Narrativist"). Are you saying that the group in this exercise "isn't roleplaying?"

Secondly, I think the group in question is participating*--they're not just "wittnessing" the narrative--they are acting it out, creating it through play (instantiating?).

I think you might be arguing that in such events there is either "no premise" or there is premise but it's "not addressed." Looking at your response you don't say "there is no Premise" you say, instead "they are not addressing Premise, they are witnessing it, and nothing more." (emphasis added)

So that means it exists and the key missing element is ... what? Empowerment? A stated intent to experience the premise as as answered by another media? (I'm not clear the players are unempowered--if we all agree to do 'X' then do we lose our power when we do 'X'?) But I think that's the point John was making about fatalistic characters and a clash with Narrativism. I think he's saying that creating a fatalisitc character is the same as a decision to act-out the Godfather (i.e. Not Narrativist).

-Marco
* A movie will still run if no one watches. The RPG requires the agreement of the people involved to keep moving. That's not an entirely passive role--in fact, there's a whole spectrum of active-to-passive and it looks to me like "wittnessing" is an arbitrary line drawn somewhere--but it's not clear to me where (although I agree this group has way agreed to be on the passive side).

[Christopher Kubasik]

Wait.  Stop.

Guys.  John moved the discussion from my simple, clear question, to a whole side example that has nothing to do with the term Fatalistic RPG... and now Ron and Marco are having a side conversation on this non-pertinent topic.

I'm not saying it might not be valuable topic, I'm saying, I fucking want to know if there's any value to the Fatalistic notion at all...  And like a blob of mercury that keeps sliding out under my fingers, I'm determined to hunt the son of a bitch down until I have it.  Let's see what happens if we stick to "Fatalist RPG."

John, so... there are stories with premise with characters that don't change, right?

So if the group is addressing premise, and that addressing of premise is one of the creative agendas of the group, and one of PCs has been determined to make the same choice again and again in terms of the premise...  in this case (not another case), how is this not Narrativist play for the group?  One player has opted to be a kind of "immovable" object in the tale that all the players can compare the shifting characters against.

Given that it's Narrativist, the player with the Relentless character can set his character up for fascinating revelations of how far his character will go and still hold his behavior, the other players can encourage the same, and the GM can encourage the same.  And the Relentless PC's player can engineer scenes where his character and another charactger get to be in scenes where the premise is explored, and again, the tension between the "immovable object" and the PC who might choose the same or differntly is explored. That's an exploration of Premise.

In what way, how, in what way, please, tell me, is this, in this case, as posited by your definition (not another situation, that isn't your definition), is this not Narrativist play?

Because, really, there's nothing new here.  There.  Just.  Is.  Not.  The fact that a character doesn't change or grow has NOTHING to do with whether or not the group is prioritizing premise as part of the creative agenda.  In fact, in the second paragraph preceding this one, I've made it clear a group might do exactly this to accentuate the creative agenda of premise and narrativist play.

So.  In the type of play described, in the actual example in this post, using the actual topic of conversation  on this thread, is there in fact a contradiction between a Relentless character and, if the group is going for this, Narrativist play?

If not, can we just say, "Hmmm, that Relentless character sounds cool for a Narrativist game, I'd like to give that a try."  If there is a contradiction, please explain.

Christopher

[Marco]

Given that it's Narrativist, the player with the Relentless character can set his character up for fascinating revelations of how far his character will go and still hold his behavior, the other players can encourage the same, and the GM can encourage the same.  And the Relentless PC's player can engineer scenes where his character and another charactger get to be in scenes where the premise is explored, and again, the tension between the "immovable object" and the PC who might choose the same or differntly is explored. That's an exploration of Premise.

In what way, how, in what way, please, tell me, is this, in this case, as posited by your definition (not another situation, that isn't your definition), is this not Narrativist play?

Christopher

I think of Ron's post earlier on:

The non-Narrativist version is simply that everyone knows and reinforces, during play, the written-down or verbalized agreement that Gunnar is X and that is all there is to it. Even a more complex game system like Pendragon, in which shifts from X to Y and back are explicitly structured, falls into this category.

(emphasis added)

-Marco

[pete_darby]

well, big and inappropriate boots back on here, but to my mind, the difference between the narrativist and non-narrativist boils down to "Does the group give a damn about adressing the premise?"

Doesn't even matter if it's concious or unconcious: if the question in the premise is what people are concerned about during play, then that's nar. If they're more concerned with the mechanics of accurately modelling character responses within the situation, then it's probably more sim than nar.

Looking at the examples given, including mine, we seem to be focussing on the what of simulated events defining the nar / sim boundary (which, of course, is more flexible than a slinky), rather than looking at what's getting the players stoked about these situations.

What does it matter whether the characters are able to address the premise adequately? The engagement with the premise occurs (or not) amongst the players.

I'd go as far as to say that player interest in the inability of characters to adequately address the premise is in itself a good indicator of narrativist play, just as, say, the playing of an ineffective character may consitute a higher degree of Step On Up for gamist play ("anyone can survive Dark Sun as halfling assassin: I'm going to play as a one legged kobold mage with scrofula because I've got the cojones for it!").

Sim differs from nar and gam in this, but that's for another thread.

Marco, I think in Ron's statement, it's non-narrativist because the implicit attitude amongst the players is that Gunnars reactions with regard to addressing premise is uninteresting enough to be left in the background. Were the same group to drift towards nar play, the simulated responses of Gunnar could remain unchanged; the attitude of players towards them couldn't.

Of course, I'm patronisingly interpreting Ron's comments to contradict Marco's point, so I fully expect both feet to fall on me squarely now.