Fatalism and Narrativsm

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

You can wear those boots any time, Pete. What you say works for me, and same goes for Christopher.

Marco, there's nothin' I can say. I either flatly disagree with you, or one of us is misinterpreting the other's point, or both. This is that whirlpool-thing happening again.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

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.

Right on. So if the players are engaged with the address of premise in John's Godfather scenario then would it be Narrativist too? Even though their PC actions have a circumscribed path?

It seems to me Ron said "no" but I'm not having much luck reading the implicit attitudes that exist between the lines. John did specify that in his hypothetical the players were very engaged in the examination of the moral questions posed.

-Marco

[Christopher Kubasik]

Marco,

Wait, wait, wait.....

For god's sake.  There is no circumscribed path.  It's not what we're talking about.

John's Godfather example assumes that we're all recreating the text of the Godfather.  But this very notion is something I addressed aggressively in the first half of the thread and demolished as a concern for this thread. John empathically agreed that this idea of recreating the tale is not the agenda here.  (John might have brought this up by accident, since he tried to take me to task for addressing the matter at all in my response MJ's post.)  He's clearly on record as saying recreating the narrative is not what the thread is about, it's not what "Fatalistic RPGs" are about.

Please don't cloud the discussion with this issue.

Pete's simply right on this matter.  In Ron's example of the non-narrativist version, PC X behaves a certain way, and everyone accepts that and that's all there is to that.  In the Narrativist version, PC X behaves a certain way, and, along wiht the rest of the PCs, character X's behavior is tested and explored along the lines of  the premise.  By answering the premise, even if it's the same damned answer every time, PC X's player is playing along with the concerns of a Narrativist game.

I'm not saying it might not be a subtle distinction. I am saying it is a profound distinction in the context of the creative agenda and the resulting play.

***

Now, please, for the sake of all that is sane and holy, don't jerk the discussion into a theoretical example that is a completely different set of circumstances than the one we are dissecting.

In my previous post, I posited an example of play with a group of player with an narrativist creative agenda using a Relentless Characters and asked if John (and, you too Marco, if you want to play) can tell me where the contradiction is in *that* example.

Anyone can play, but they're going to have to play by the rules.  Two pages back I asked for a definition of Fatalistic play.  On the last page I got one.  We even weeded out two possible isses that were floating around an made it clear we were not talking about either of them: the recreation of narrative, or the character who's fate is already determined.  

Fatalistic play, as clearly defined by John, is when a PC is given a behavior that will not change through play.  He is for all practical purposes answering the premise the same way every time its asked.  The character does not grow or change.  John says that this means there is in fact no Narrativist play in this case.  I disagree.  I've laid out why in my previous post.  Can anyone actually contradict me within the example I offered?  Because as far as I can tell, its Narrativist play with a little twist.  A fine twist.  But nothing that creates a special case.

*That's* what we're working with here, folks, so please stick to it.

Christopher

[Gordon C. Landis]

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.

(second emphasis added)
That's the situation in which a Fatalistic approach can lead to non-Nar play - if ALL that is happening (or more carefully, the prioritized thing that is happening), for EVERYONE, is reinforcement of the written down or verbalized agreements about EVERYTHING in play being X, Y or Z and etc.

In other situations, like the one Christopher describes, the Fatalistic (or Relentless) approach for a particular character(s) can lead to Nar play.

At least, that's how I'm seeing it,

Gordon

[Marco]

That's the situation in which a Fatalistic approach can lead to non-Nar play - if ALL that is happening (or more carefully, the prioritized thing that is happening), for EVERYONE, is reinforcement of the written down or verbalized agreements about EVERYTHING in play being X, Y or Z and etc.

In other situations, like the one Christopher describes, the Fatalistic (or Relentless) approach for a particular character(s) can lead to Nar play.

At least, that's how I'm seeing it,

Gordon

Ron wrote this:

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.

This looks like "all that's happening" to me--but, as I said, I'm not seeing the inferences.

-Marco

[C. Edwards]

Hey Marco,

I think perhaps you need to try and re-absorb the whole thing together. Focusing on just a sentence or two can only lead to madness. ;)

Let's see if an example near and dear to your heart will help. Gunnar, in Njal's Saga, is of course a fixed-in-amber character because of the medium (an already-created character in a story being told to us, the audience). But let's say instead that he is a character in a role-playing game, which even now has reached the point where he has knuckled under to various aggravating provocations, several times ... and yet another one comes along.

Does he turn on his wife (who's responsible for many of these hassles)? Does he leave for a far-off land? Does he knuckle under again? Does he finally snap and call feud?

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.

Ignore any reference to the character. What are the players doing in either instance?  In the non-Narrativist version the players act to reinforce that "Gunnar is X and that is all there is to it." They're acting to reinforce that "Gunnar is X" AND by agreement "that is all there is to it". There is no particular desire by the players to prioritize any moral ambiguities that Gunner's player could confront. He is who he is.

In the Narrativist version the possibility of Gunner being more (or less) than he seems is left wide open. The avenue to prioritization of Premise is wide open. Even though the player may be playing Gunner "as conceived", there is the chance at any decision point that "Gunner is X" could change (even subtlely) to "Gunner is Y". There's no agreement that "Gunner is X and that's all there is to it". As Ron said:

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.

Think of it this way. To the players (in the non-Narrativist version), "who Gunner is" is an absolute. Gunner is X. In the Narrativist version "who Gunner is" may be a variable. The point of play is to prioritize Premise to find out if Gunner is who the players think he is. Gunner may end up being unwaverable and rock solid in his actions throughout play, but the possibility that he may have turned out differently was always there.

Well, hope that helps, and that I haven't muddle things.

-Chris

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Chris Edwards has nailed it, in my view. And I'll reinforce an earlier point that, in my view, the observational difference between the distinction is extremely marked: how the people treat one another and demonstrate interest, attention, and input about what during play.

Best,
Ron

[John Kim]

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.

...
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.

Um, hello??  Ron: stop, take a breath, and re-read the words that I wrote that you quoted.  We are 100% in agreement.  This is not Narrativist play -- you are saying exactly the same thing that I am.  I cited it exactly because it is not Narrativist play.  This example was specifically trying to debunk two claims:

1) Gordon's post implied that a game could be Narrativist if the participants were grooving on the Premise-addressing-ness of the fatalist PC's actions.  This example is intended to debunk this.  In this example, the players could all be grooving on the themes of the plot that they are going through (i.e. the plot of The Godfather) -- but it would still not be Narrativist, because they are not actively choosing those themes during play, but rather merely acting them out.  

2) Christopher's post implied that because Beowulf (the poem) addresses a Premise, this same thing played out in an RPG would be Narrativist.  Based on my example, you (Ron) and myself agree that this doesn't follow.  The Godfather as a movie addresses Premise, but my example is not Narrativist.  This despite the fact that the exact same fictional events are portrayed in both.

[Marco]

Chris,

I read all that pretty carefully--and  there are some things that still don't line up for me though:

1. Look at the Relentless Character. That character is absolute. It achieves Narrativist lift-off because the players are focused on the way the absolute character is used to address premise, yes? That's CK's claim, anyway, and it makes sense to me because it deals with the internal state of the players (or at least the precieved internal state). They're all over the Premise addressing action as explored through this rock of a character, right?

So it's not the "chance of change" as you suggest. It's the player engagement, right?

2. In Ron's example the player is just rolling right along--there's no foucs on the premise--it's all about the observer thinking that, through the act of play, a moral question is being asked and answered even if the player is not obviouslly jazzed about it. So it's not about player engagement, right?

So what's left? It looks to me like it's the possibility of choice. If Gunnar has the choice to change his ways it can be Narrativist, even if he doesn't. If he doesn't then it isn't (John made this point--I thought very clearly).

Would you say that?

Put this another way: if you have a 1-on-1 game where the player is playing Gunnar and is rolling along as expected (Ron's Narrativist scenario) how would you ever know if it was Narrativie play or not?

-Marco

[Ron Edwards]

Hello John,

I get the points of agreement, but we do not agree at all on what "address" means. I've decided to deal with that later.

Uh-oh, cross-posting too. Marco, it's digging deeper. Now we are all gummed up on my phrasing "rolling right along." I think you're reading it to mean something absolutely different from what I intended it to.

Moderator hat. Every post in the last few pages has been "what I meant when I said X to what you said you meant about Y." That is a bad thing.

So, I think it's time for Nathan (Paganini) to decide whether this thread needs to keep breathing. Let's all wait for his call.



Best,
Ron

[Paganini]

So, I think it's time for Nathan (Paganini) to decide whether this thread needs to keep breathing. Let's all wait for his call.

Hey Ron, sorry for the delay, I was out of town the last couple of days.

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*

This pretty much settles the question for me. All the other issues that have come up are interesting, but ultimately tangential, so let's close this one down, and take it to other threads.