Writing Style, Detail, and Simulationism

[C. Edwards]

Give a character a background and send him out into the world to make decisions based on that background. You'll get yourself a theme based on whatever you put in the background, and hence get yourself a helping of Nar. How well the events that transpire bring the theme to light it a matter of style and skill.

The presence of theme does not itself determine the presence of Nar. I think this is the area where the difference between writing and role-playing is most noticeable, particularly in the sense that observing a writer in the act of writing is not likely to tell you anything useful about what is being prioritized.

Prioritization during play, during the act of creation, is the determiner of GNS mode. Theme may be present during play in any mode, it may especially be apparent after the act of play in the resulting story or narrative. The key is whether or not the participant(s) was focused primarily on highlighting and examining the theme during play itself. For the purposes of role-playing that means actual play.

If we contrast actual play with the act of writing we run into some difficulty. One example being that the writer may have the whole story, from beginning to end, predetermined. A few details may be missing, but when the writer sits down to write there may be no question in his mind as to how events will play out and how characters will behave. In role-playing this usually manifests as detailed and intensive character backgrounds on the player's part or rail-roading on the GM's side. Writers who sit down to write, developing events and character response rather spontaneously during the actual act of writing, come much closer to a parallel of actual play, IMO.

Now, part of priorizitation includes what the participant, let's say Tolkien in this instance, was excited about and primarily focused on during the act of creation. Just what exactly Tolkein was more focused on is the million dollar question.

My opinion is that the themes present in the LotR trilogy stem from Tolkien's exploration of his setting and background material and his need to portray that setting to the audience through the eyes of the characters. Not that he wasn't aware of the themes he was authoring, just that I don't believe that they were of primary concern to him. I think that he utilized theme in order to move the characters around to interesting places that he wanted to "spotlight". So, all things considered, I would probably say "Sim" when it comes to the LotR trilogy.

In the end though, I definitely agree with Gordon in that trying to apply GNS to written works is fraught with peril.

-Chris

*edited: just to note the cross-post with Ralph.

[Ian Charvill]

There are, I think, really simple reasons why GNS-style analysis cannot be used productively on a book.  You would have to observe the writer working on the book and see which parts he was most emotionally engaged by; and then you would have to watch the readers reading the book and see which parts they were emotionally engaged by - and finally you would have to make some kind of aggregate judgment based on all of those observations.

A lot less clean and clear than half-a-dozen people sitting round a table rolling dice.

You might say that certain types of novel echo the types of story one might see if you compared transcripts of sessions of different types of play.  But, and it's a big but, I think there's such limited utility in that it's pretty much not worth doing.

cf. Ron's narrativist essay excerpt .here.

[lumpley]

Consciousness, intentionality, isn't necessary to Narrativism.  The people at the table don't have to be intentionally prioritizing theme-authorship to be playing Narrativist.  They only have to be doing theme-authorship.  Am I wrong?

Whether Tolkein authored his themes on purpose or by raw instinct does not matter.  He authored them.  In the moment of creation, he was right there writing thematically-charged, premise-driven fiction.  How do we know?  Because what came out was thematically charged, premise-driven fiction!

The important thing is what can be learned from the discussion of such elements and not so much on reaching a definitive answer.

I dunno.  I don't think you can learn anything at all from "what if fiction could be Sim or Gam?"  All you do is muddle up what can actually be Sim or Gam.

Look, if you want to say, "Tolkein was like a Simulationist in this and this and this way..." I'll go happily along with you, pretty much no matter what you list.  I balk only at "Tolkein was like a Simulationist in that he didn't address a premise by authoring theme."  As long as you stop short of that, hell, make the guy as Simulationist-like as you want.

-Vincent

[John Kim]

So the issue in trying to answer whether a book is Nar or Sim has everything to do with how the author addressed the premise during "actual play/writing".  If he was addressing it intentionally during the writing process (and some books are written such that its obvious he was doing so) then one can say Nar.  If he wasn't and theme "just happened" then one can say Sim.  

If on the other hand the Nar is hidden under a strong emphasis in Exploration, the best you can do without consulting the author is say "could be either".  Might have been on purpose, might have "just happened"

I repeat that I agree that it was likely on purpose.  But to say its cut and dry is really overstating the position.  One can make a good arguement that it "just happened".  After all, look at all of the themes that people have attributed to the book that Tolkien during his life came out and said "No...had nothinng to do with that".  Never-the-less those themes are present.  They weren't intended, they "just happened".  Therefor not Nar themes.

Hmmm.  Ralph, you're saying that Sim/Nar split is on the basis of intent.   But as I recall, there have been several threads where Ron and others insisted that GNS was emphatically not based on intent.  

Now, on the other hand, I do think that intent is important.  After all, intent is the only thing we control.  Intent was the basis of the rgfa Threefold, for example.  And I would tend to agree that much of Tolkien's story was not the result of intent.  From what I know of his letters and life, he disliked quite a bit of literary analysis including rejecting symbolism in interpretation.  

As for how this relates to role-playing, I think it is very important.  Methodology is all about conscious intent.  So if I want to decide how to attempt to run my game, I need to think about what conscious approach I should adopt.  It seems to me that how fiction writers approach their works could be a very fruitful ground for deciding how to do so.  So suppose I approach my game the way that Tolkien approached his book.  I work on the languages, perhaps on the geography, the history, and so forth.  I then start the game, having the characters head off across the world without any idea why.  (NOTE: From Tolkien's earlier drafts, he wrote most of the Fellowship of the Ring without there being a ring.  He rewrote it later to add in the ring plot to motivate the journey.)  

Regardless of what label you want to assign to this (or whether you want to assign a label at all), I think it is interesting to consider this methodology.  For example, this is quite different than what is typically suggested for Narrativist games or game design here at the Forge.  Having seen many such threads, it is usually suggested that for a Narrativist game, you should decide on your theme and focus the elements of play to highlight that theme.

[Valamir]

Consciousness, intentionality, isn't necessary to Narrativism.  The people at the table don't have to be intentionally prioritizing theme-authorship to be playing Narrativist.  They only have to be doing theme-authorship.  

Well this is going well beyond the boundaries of this thread.  But take these two points:

1) It is possible to have theme arise through Sim Play
2) If the players author theme (conciously or no) its Nar Play.

These cannot both be true.

Either #1 is true, in which case, no, not all authoring of theme automatically constitutes Nar.

Or #2 is true, in which case every case where theme gets established is automatically Nar and there can never be a theme to Sim Play.

#2 cannot be true, because you'd have to work overtime to arrive at a story that had absolutely no theme that could be teased out...virtually all story would then have theme, so virtually all play would then be Nar.  We know this is not the case.

Therefor #1 must be true, which means simply because one can identify a theme in Tolkien's work does not automatically make it Nar.  There are other elements beyond the mere presence of theme that is required.

As I said before, and as Ian rightly emphasizes its pretty hard to identify those other elements in a written (as opposed to played) medium.  Therefor we can't really say for certain whether there were Nar forces at work when Tolkien wrote LotR or not.  I think there probably were (which is why I said its likely Vanilla Sim) but that there is no way to be conclusive about it (which is why I said its not cut and dry).


So what are those other elements?  Quite honestly I think efforts to say "Nar doesn't have to be concious" is incorrect.  What I believe was meant by those points is that the players involved don't have to be framing their Premise in terms of "ok and now I'm going to introduce the premise of...X".  In other words it doesn't require a certain structure or formula or jargon.

But I do believe it has to be "on purpose"  (in fact, I think Story On Purpose is much a more effective phrase than Story Now).  Players have to be trying to make a point with there play.  They must be concious that they are making a point.  They may not identify that point as a "premise" in their minds.  They may not have a scripted phrase of what the theme is going to be.  They may not, at the point it is happening, pause to reflect on what a powerful moment they're about to craft.  But they must be actually striving to say something.  It must be "on purpose".

Accidental theme that arises in retrospect from pure Exploration cannot be Nar.  

I'm certain you know that already, which is why your position on Tolkien has me surprised.  Since we don't know for certain that he was writing theme "on purpose" (Chris makes a good case above for him not doing so) we can't say definitively that he was writing Nar.

BTW:  This is not me argueing to try and get you to say "you're right Ralph" this is really me wanting to understand where you're coming from and outlining where I'm coming from in the interest of consensus.

As for whether its useful...I think it is.  The answer is unknowable.  But the exercise of speculating I think is educational.  If one understands the principals of GNS we should be able to apply those principles.  Even if the information we need to make a conclusive diagnosis may be unobtainable at least getting to the point where we can a) identify what information we don't know and b) confidently say "if the information was X, then we'd be looking at A, and if its Y, then we'd be looking at B".

The benefit of using well known literature for this exercise is that it is at least a complete transcript that everyone (pretty much) is equally familiar with.  Tolkien in particular is a good case study because so much is known of the behind the scenes efforts of writing the book, and its fairly easy to tell which parts he was most excited about when he wrote them.

I find it educational anyway.

[Jason Lee]

I reading through the rather long thread Ralph PM'd me, and that Ian linked.  Then I'll respond in more detail to Ralph & Chris (if needed).  However...

1) It is possible to have theme arise through Sim Play
2) If the players author theme (conciously or no) its Nar Play.

These cannot both be true.

Either #1 is true, in which case, no, not all authoring of theme automatically constitutes Nar.

Or #2 is true, in which case every case where theme gets established is automatically Nar and there can never be a theme to Sim Play.

#2 cannot be true, because you'd have to work overtime to arrive at a story that had absolutely no theme that could be teased out...virtually all story would then have theme, so virtually all play would then be Nar.  We know this is not the case.

Therefor #1 must be true, which means simply because one can identify a theme in Tolkien's work does not automatically make it Nar.  There are other elements beyond the mere presence of theme that is required.

#2 must be true for Vanilla Nar to exist, because Vanilla Nar is most often identified as Nar play occuring "unintentionally".  Further more, virtually all play with theme may well be Nar.  As a theme is being created in play it is being addressed.  

So I can clearly not choose the glass in front of you.

This may be unrelated, but probably isn't so I'm gonna say it.  I see the explored elements and the theme as the same thing.  Lemme explain, because that probably gives you the 'Jason's wacko' face.

My theme is 'What is freedom worth?"  And blammo!  I've got character, setting, and situation.  I've got a setting where oppression exists, a character suffering from oppression, and a chance to break free from it (or whatever, examples only).  Not everything I need to play, but once I'm playing System and Color show up.  It goes in reverse:  One slave (Character), One society with slavery (Setting), a chance to run for it (Situation), and I've got myself the theme.

So I've got theme, but not Nar yet.  What I need to do to get Nar is address this in play, which occurs if I remain committed to he explored elements that comprise the theme.  'Cause the explored elements and theme are the same thing, we just put 'em in different little boxes for analysis.  Remain consistent with the explored elements that intially created the theme, and you continue to address the theme.  Continuing to address the theme means remaining committed to the explored elements it was spawned from (in one fashion or another).

[Emily Care]

I think Tolkien was guilty of Story on Purpose. His major sources or influences were myths from various traditions. Tolkien tried to publish the Silmarillion, which reads like Ovid or one of the sagas, before he wrote LoTR.      

Also, to put it in context, though LoTR wasn't published until the '50's, the level of detail lavished on setting feels much more like a 19th century work. Fiction has gotten spare since Hemingway.

And, a question, would a fictional narrative with story but no theme not be narrativist?

Regards,
Emily Care

[Valamir]

#2 must be true for Vanilla Nar to exist, because Vanilla Nar is most often identified as Nar play occuring "unintentionally". Further more, virtually all play with theme may well be Nar. As a theme is being created in play it is being addressed.

I disagree.  Vanilla Nar is still "on purpose" it is not "unintentionally".  Vanilla Nar is "on purpose, without making a big deal about it."

This is covered where I said:

I think efforts to say "Nar doesn't have to be concious" is incorrect. What I believe was meant by those points is that the players involved don't have to be framing their Premise in terms of "ok and now I'm going to introduce the premise of...X". In other words it doesn't require a certain structure or formula or jargon.

When Nar play is going on and there is as overt application of theory, conspicuously stated efforts to define premise, or game mechanics designed to focus on Premise to the exclusion of all else (i.e. mechanics that eschew exploration in favor of pure premise addressing) then you have Pervy Nar.  

Vanilla Nar is nothing more than Nar being laid back, subtle, and not drawing attention to itself.  It is playing Nar without jumping up and down and saying "I'm playing Nar now".  It often maintains its subdued appearance by cloaking itself in familiar trappings...typically a heavy emphasis on Exploration.  But it is still Nar...it is still "on purpose".

Theme that "just happens" cannot possibly be labeled Narativist.  If it is, than Simulationism does not exist because it is virtually impossible to tell a story using pure exploration that doesn't stumble into a theme somewhere.

Its not called a creative "Agenda" by accident.  Agenda indicates that it must be "on purpose"...whether you bother to label what your doing or not you must intend to do it...or it ain't an Agenda.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Ralph,

I'm also not just trying to be the guy with the right answer here, but the GNS I'm starting from and considering (perhaps foolishly) mapping onto Tolkien just doesn't look like the same GNS you're starting from.  Taking your two statements that you think cannot both be true:

1) It is possible to have theme arise through Sim Play
2) If the players author theme (consciously or no) its Nar Play.

It looks to me that they can both be true.  The only reason they couldn't to my eye is if you take "arise" (in statement 1) to be equivalent to "author" and/or "consciously" (in statement 2).  And they are not, not in GNS as I understand it.

Then you say that folks have to author theme "on purpose" - gack.  We're back in the discussion of what it means to intend something, and that's not fruitful ground.  I think it's very clear that in GNS terms, the statement "well, I authored theme, but not on purpose" is meaningless.  GNS does not care what your purpose was - you did, or you didn't.  Now, it turns out that for many people, having a mental experience they label "having a purpose to author theme" means they are more likely to then do so, but that's not part of the definition.  As Ron puts it (paraphrase) "the human mind very naturally and readily addresses premise in the right circumstances" - that being the case (and, I'd say, the same being true of the human mind in terms of the Dream and Step On Up), purposefulness and/or consciousness just doesn't enter into GNS.

The question in the discussion at hand is - how does that apply to talking about Tolkien?  And the problem is, if we're looking at something like "the observed priority of the activity as demonstrated by mutual reinforcement amongst the group" as the defining way to determine G, N or S, it just doesn't map onto a book, and/or a singular author.  To build on Vincent's analogy, the "instance of play" we have to look at with a book/author would be no less - AND no more - than the entirety of the work itself.  What he said in letters before/after the work and etc. would NOT, in GNS terms, be part of play.  Because in making a GNS determination, we do not care WHY players do what they do, we only care what they do.

Which (to address John's point a bit) doesn't mean the why (or the purposefulness/consciousness) doesn't matter, it's just not a GNS-variable.  Well, if folks do happen to say something about why during play, sure, we can take that into account - but it won't trump the plain display of what they are actually doing.  It might (as I take John to be pointing to) nonetheless be very useful information for future planning and play, but in itself - not a GNS issue.

So - as Vincent says, it's fine to say "Tolkien is like a Simulationist" in x way, as long as x isn't "failure to author theme."  Because he did.

Unless . . . well, truth to tell, "author" in GNS is NOT equivalent to authoring a book.  So I guess you could map GNS-author into book-author in such a way that there's a book-equivalent of "arise" (from your statement 1) in GNS that contrasts with author.  Thus we could say:

1) It is possible to have theme arise through Sim book writing
2) If the writer authors theme (consciously or no) it's Nar book writing

Because that does such damage to one of the core (for me) aspects of GNS - that what we look at to make our determination is what happens in play - I'm reluctant to accept it.  It's fine to look at the "thought process" behind the creation of a work of fiction and say some writers author theme, while others simply let theme arise through writing. It's fine to say that's an important distinction in looking at those fictions.  But to take that "thought process" distinction back to GNS is NOT good.  IMO.

Gordon

[Jason Lee]

I disagree.  Vanilla Nar is still "on purpose" it is not "unintentionally".  Vanilla Nar is "on purpose, without making a big deal about it."

Won't focus too much on this because I think my "unintentionally" (see quotes) and your "on purpose" (more quotes) are equivalent.  "Unintentional" equals "without conscious and vocalized intent", and I think "on purpose" means the same.  Right?

Theme that "just happens" cannot possibly be labeled Narativist.  If it is, than Simulationism does not exist because it is virtually impossible to tell a story using pure exploration that doesn't stumble into a theme somewhere.

Bingo! Simulationism does not exist.  Or rather, prioritizing Exploration and prioritizing Creative Agenda are two different things.  They both exist, but not in the same layer.  Hence, I'm obviously having troubling calling Tolkien Sim.

This may be a point of agreeing to disagree.  I did finish reading through that thread... I didn't get too much besides "wait for the Nar essay."  Which, I can't complain about (better understanding is why it's being written right?) and am willing to do.  I may also get more out of that thread after it swirls around in my head for an evening - doubtful, but possible.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Ralph,

1) It is possible to have theme arise through Sim Play
2) If the players author theme (conciously or no) its Nar Play.

These cannot both be true.

I think the whole "production of theme" thing is not necessarily the best litmus test for Narrativism. Theme is a byproduct. And it is unnecessary for a player to actively concern himself with producing it.

To identify Narrativism, instead look to the other players. Are they consciously or unconsciously aware that a significant issue has been raised for the character in question? You can tell this by the way they pay attention to that character's scenes. Does the player in question handle his character with attention to managing the interest of the other players? This, not the production of theme is the Narrativist's primary concern during play. If theme is produced, it is a byproduct of this. And yeah, I'm saying that maybe theme isn't produced. Maybe all the characters are killed by a broken aspect of the system. It was still Narrativism up to that point. Narrativism is the activity of taking the input of game events as raw material for managing the interest of the other players in your own character. A Narrativist constantly jerks and slaps at the interest of the other players. It happens to generally produce theme because our brains are wired to pay attention when presented with input that suggests it might be a story. Narrativism is a game of playing with audience interest.

Paul

[Jason Lee]

Paul,

That's terribly interesting...

I'd always assumed that paying attention to the interests of the other players was up at the Social Contract level.  I need to chew on this, and probably observe a few game sessions with this in mind.  Gimme a hand though - how then, from his particular angle, are Sim and Gam defined?

[Valamir]

Sorry Paul.  I don't buy that at all.  That's a telltale that indicates that maybe Narrativism is happening, but it isn't in itself Narrativism.  Being concious of the interest of other players is something that can go on at the social contract level for all agendas.

It is a requirement that this happens for narrativist play to be possible, so we can say "without this interest, it can't be narrativism".  But we can't declare the reverse, of "with this interest, it is".  

So I think your above post is only 1/2 of the picture.  In fact, I think you've nicely described what I meant by the "on purpose" phrase I used above which gave Gordon pause.  But it is insufficient for a definition of Narrativism IMO, to simply as that a player "handle his character with attention to managing the interest of the other players".

The other half must be the element in which the other players are interested in.

In a Gamist game a player should handle his character with attention to managing the interest of the other players in the step on up aspects of the game.  In a Simulationist game the interest being managed is the exploration.  In a Narrativist game it must be the theme.  

You can get theme as the result of a Gamist game or a Simulationist game.  But only in Narrativism is the priority of play, is it done "on purpose".



In fact, to take this a step further and cross with another recent thread.  Functional Roleplaying occurs when the players are handling their characters with attention to maintaining the interest of the other players.  I submitt one could define Dysfunctional Roleplaying as a whole menu of activities that have as their common base that this is not being done.

Creative Agenda then is that which the other players are interested in...the dream, the step on up, story now.  That's the second half.

[Ian Charvill]

Consciousness, intentionality, isn't necessary to Narrativism.  The people at the table don't have to be intentionally prioritizing theme-authorship to be playing Narrativist.  They only have to be doing theme-authorship.  Am I wrong?

Vincent

I wouldn't say you were wrong, but treating prioritizing and doing as equivalents is dubious.  People can be doing theme authorship quite happily but if they drop it as soon as a challenge arises, or where doing so would damage the dream, then they ain't playing narrativist.

I think what a lot of people are doing is treating the authoring (whether conscious or not) of theme as being equal to narrativism when narrativism is the prioritization of the authoring of theme.  You lose the requirement of prioritization and the whole model goes kerplooey and people have to start dragging conscious intent to justify the idea of an agenda.

It's not an agenda through intent, it's an agenda through prioritization.

[lumpley]

There's some fuzzy use of "theme" in this thread, which probably won't trip anybody up long-term but might.  So to lay it out:  Premise is the moral question.  Authoring theme is answering the question.  "What is freedom worth?" is the Premise (not to pick on you, Jason, I think your example above is quite tidy).  "Freedom is not worth the death of your soul" is a theme.  In roleplaying, showing in play that freedom is not worth the death of your soul is authoring that theme.  "Authoring theme" and "addressing Premise" are the same thing.

That said.

People play Narrativist without noticing it all the frickin' time.

Ralph, your two points:

1) It is possible to have theme arise through Sim Play

Yes.  HOWEVER, it is not possible to have theme be reliably, consistently co-authored through Sim play.  As Gordon says.

When theme "arises" from Sim play, that means it was brought into the game by someone other than the-players-as-collaborators, or at some time other than the moment of creation.  It was imposed by one player (like the GM), hard-built by the game designer, retrofitted by the reteller - whatever.

Play in which theme is reliably, consistently co-authored is, by defi-fucking-nition, Narrativist play. *

2) If the players author theme (conciously or no) its Nar Play.

Yes.  If the players reliably, consistently co-author theme, even if they don't realize that's what they're doing, it's Narrativist play.

Your two points can be and are both true.

Here's my take on "on purpose":

Some folks play a game.  They reliably, consistently, collaboratively address Premise, even when challenges arise (per Ian).  You say to them, "hey, were you prioritizing theme-authorship?"  They say, "huh?  Dude no way, I was just playin' my guy."  You conclude...

That they were prioritizing theme-authorship!  Fuck, man, you watched them do it!  They didn't notice or couldn't articulate or were flat-out mistaken about their priorities, but you don't care.  You saw them reliably, consistently address Premise, even when it was hard.  What better evidence for their priorities could there be?

...Which, here's Tolkein, reliably, consistently addressing Premise.  He gets a pass on the "collaboratively" because he was playing with himself.  As it, um, were.

More generally, it's baffling and odd to see GNS applied to fiction.  It's like you've run Egri's ideas through Babelfish a couple times.  I mean, we already know all about how premise and theme and challenge and prioritization and all that shit works in literature - that's where Narrativism was born!

Some side points:

MJ, I agree with you in principle about travelogues, but I think that often the -logueing of your travels is a creative moment, akin to authorship, and lots of times the -loguer adresses premise there.  I'm thinking particularly of Errol Morris, who brings gripping theme-stuff into the raw material of his documentaries.

Emily, I don't think that you can even have a story in that sense without theme.  That's Egri: what makes a fictional narrative a story is its premise.

Ian, can you come up with a case where pursuing Story Now might damage the Dream?  I can't.  Story Now depends on consistent, plausible, faithful Exploration, same as the Dream does.  (It's easy to come up with cases where pursuing the Dream doesn't live up to Story Now, because Story Now depends on Exploration + Addressing Premise, not Exploration alone.)  Maybe a new thread, if you feel like it?

-Vincent

* edit: I wish I'd said "defi-diddlydang-nition" instead.  I'm not actually feeling mean or angry.