[Narrativism essay] Concept & excerpt

[qxjit]

"I knew that", sorta.  However, I probably wouldn't have known that a few months ago.  It's taken me awhile of reading and re-reading the theory -- and the Whole Model thread among others -- to get to that point.  

I say "sorta" because you loaded that story with theme and it tempted me to jump to a "this is Narrativist" conclusion while I was reading it, but when you asked the question, I managed to get it right.

Take care, have a good holiday, then get back to work on the essay!

[Halzebier]

Hal, I suggest that you're looking for clues as to what decisions were made by the real people in the prose ... and not seeing them, because they're not there. My point is that an account of the fictional events in a role-playing game can be given any sort of "feel" post-hoc through how it's recounted, entirely independently of the decisions made by the creators at the time.

Agreed.

If I'd put "Only by making a risky dive through the flames of the dragon did Javenne place herself to catch the ring that Gyrax tossed to her, and to activate it as he hacked at the monster to distract it ..." it still wouldn't mean a thing in terms of however the group actually played that session. It would still just be how I wrote it up, and hence meaningless regarding Creative Agenda during the process of play.

"Vader takes Luke to the emperor. Luke resists conversion, thereby converting Vader. Vader kills and is killed by the emperor."

This does not tell us anything about whether it's an action movie or character study. Heck, it could be a comedy (with all those conversions ;-).

Similarly, neither your first nor your second example allow one to deduce G/N/S priorities. I agree with that.

I just find it unlikely that the conclusion of RotJ would ever get summarized as above -- except as an exercise in reduction and neutrality.

Regards,

Hal

[hix]

It's not that I "knew it"; it's that during the process of reading the passage I independently came to that conclusion. Perhaps I figured that because you'd excerpted the summary, there had to be something tricksy about it.

Steve.

[Ian Charvill]

I knew that.  I do think there's a certain amount of rhetorical manouevring going on in that I'm guessing that you've written a story which would tend to produce 'looks like narrativism' responses if people weren't paying enough attention.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello everybody,

The rhetorical maneuvering, as Hal put it and as referred to by several people so far, is actually very simple: I stated the events strictly in Explorative terms. Characters, setting, situation, system (i.e. stuff happened) and color.

It's only "maneuvering" or "cleverness" insofar as you guys knew it was supposed to emerge from a role-playing experience.

However, most movies, novels, comics, etc, do not include an intrinsic account of what it was like to make them as part of their fictional content. There are some exceptions, but arguably, they are stories-within-stories, just as biography and autobiography are stories. Putting that aside, though, most of the stories you and I know do not tell you what the authors "went through" to make them. John B, by your rules, almost all stories are outlines.

I had to come up with a name for "account of what fictionally happened during play," and "transcript" is what emerged, for better or worse. A transcript with thematic content, however trite, is a story.

Best,
Ron

[greyorm]

you loaded that story with theme and it tempted me to jump to a "this is Narrativist" conclusion

I'm pretty sure that was the point -- I'm thinking Ron's intention is that this will help illuminate that story and theme are not, by themselves, Narrativist.

Of course, though this is in the Narrativism essay, it's a lesson that applies equally to the other styles: a thematic story could just as easily have arrived out of Gamist or Simulationist play, with equal probability, so it must be something other than "what happened", or something in addition to it which is examined to determine style.

Cool, ne?

(I would have killed for this idea being expressed so concretely a few years back, when I kept being questioned about how how "Our characters did this and this and this, and we all felt really bad. How does that not fit the criteria for Narrativism?" and it took quite a bit of explanation to get through the differences)

[jburneko]

My response was more along the lines of "I was affraid of that."  You might want to spend some time in your essay outlining some of the differences between Narrativism and Simulationism with heavy Character/Situation focus where the Situation happens to embody a lot of sticky moral/ethical questions.

Sometime after reading your Whole Model post I began to realize the fact that my entire group threw up their arms and cheered when Renaux's player had Renaux bend down on one knee and fully propose to Jaquelline in my 7th Sea game says more about their Creative Agenda than my entire transcript of in-game events.

So, I think your point is made, although it is slightly disconcerting.

Jesse

[Valamir]

(I would have killed for this idea being expressed so concretely a few years back, when I kept being questioned about how how "Our characters did this and this and this, and we all felt really bad. How does that not fit the criteria for Narrativism?" and it took quite a bit of explanation to get through the differences)

Its kind of like being present for the birth of a child, watching the child struggle to walk, and now witnessing the little tyke being able to speak in complete sentences for the first time...pretty soon we'll be bundling him up and putting him on the school bus all by himself...:-)

[Bankuei]

Hi Ron,

I, too, am part of that "knew that" crowd, but I'm also glad you're using an example to point out that in-game fictional events are lower on the theory-chain than GNS, and don't necessarily indicate what's going on higher up in the boxes.

Chris

[Emily Care]

What do you think?

I think you've hit on a good way to make the point that story doth not narrativism make.  A trick quiz, of sorts.  It also highlights the difference between in-game events and the events of play.  The whole shebang of techniques, ephemera, social contract etc are missing in the narrative and they're what's the meat of discussing CA.  

This resonates for me, actually.  Over the years, I've tried to start conversations with other role-players about role-playing itself, yet what most often comes out of it is a simple retelling of who did what etc in a given campaign. The adventure, the story, is what is most easily recalled and related.  It's like talking to someone about a film and commenting on the choice of lighting and editing style, but all they remember is who got killed. Gotta be able to step back and look at the frame in order to make an analysis. Most folks here have already been trained to look at the structure of gaming, but this approach may be useful to help those who have not yet made the leap, be better able to do so.

Looking forward to reading the full essay, Ron.

Regards,
Emily Care

[qxjit]

Of course, though this is in the Narrativism essay, it's a lesson that applies equally to the other styles: a thematic story could just as easily have arrived out of Gamist or Simulationist play, with equal probability, so it must be something other than "what happened", or something in addition to it which is examined to determine style.

Exactly.  Understanding this is why I could get the answer right despite my temptations otherwise.  It was when I realized that the theory had to apply to the social interactions between the players and not to the fiction events that emerge from play that I understood just how useful and important the theory is for me.

[Mike Holmes]

That's an out and out example of Simulatonism. And there ain't nobody who can tell me otherwise. ;-)

Uh, credit to Marco, no? For fighting for the terminology change?

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I don't see any terminology change, Mike. The GNS essay says the same thing.

More generally, the topic of this thread is in no way a modification of any of my points, from day one. I've been saying the same damn thing the whole time, just not finding the right language.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Might have been before the GNS essay, but I remember long harangues about whether or not Sim could produce story. What was finally hacked out is that different people mean different things by story.

But there was a time Ron, when you insisted that Sim tended to produce "interesting series of events" and that this was not story - more like life than story. The change to accepting that story has too personal a meaning to be used as a definition of GNS mode is what I'm refering to.

Mike

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I also recall what Mike does.

EDIT:

I found an old thread from August 2001 here.

It all depends on whether CREATING a good story is a priority or not. If not, then fine - let the other priorities rule, and let "story" exist only in its most superficial sense, as a series of causal events.

I recall the phrase "series of casual events" came up a few more times around then. Basically as a way of stating that without setting out to create a story, it was not a story but a "series of casual events." And the topic was never really settled until now, where with this except from the Narrativism essay, a thematic story can arise from any mode of play. I look forward to what Story Now mean, then, since the results can come from the other two modes.