So, it occurs to me that a much simpler and clearer way of explaining and supporting what I've been saying all week has to do with the three Stances.Ron had this to say about stances a while back:

In the GNS essay, Ron wrote:
# In Actor stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have.
# In Author stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions based on the real person's priorities, then retroactively "motivates" the character to perform them. (Without that second, retroactive step, this is fairly called Pawn stance.)
# In Director stance, a person determines aspects of the environment relative to the character in some fashion, entirely separately from the character's knowledge or ability to influence events. Therefore the player has not only determined the character's actions, but the context, timing, and spatial circumstances of those actions, or even features of the world separate from the characters.

. . .

...I think it's very reasonable to say that specific stances are more common in some modes/goals of play. Historically, Author stance seems the most common or at least decidedly present at certain points for Gamist and Narrativist play, and Director stance seems to be a rarer add-on in those modes. Actor stance seems the most common for Simulationist play, although a case could be made for Author and Director stance being present during character creation in this mode.

. . .

A Narrativist approach to Stances usually involves keeping Actor Stance confined to limited instances, such that Author and Director Stances may generate a lot of metagame impact on the storyline.

. . .

(and here's a bit for Marco)

Immersion is another difficult issue that often arises in Stance discussions. Like "realism" and "completeness" and several other terms, it has many different definitions in role-playing culture. The most substantive definition that I have seen is that immersion is the sense of being "possessed" by the character. This phenomenon is not a stance, but a feeling. What kind of role-playing goes with that feeling? The feeling is associated with decision-making that is incompatible with Director or Author stance. Therefore, I suggest that immersion (an internal sensation) is at least highly associated with Actor Stance. Whether some people get into Actor stance and then "immerse," or others "immerse" and thus willy-nilly are in Actor stance, I don't know.

Nathan! We're home free. I agree with you about every single thing except a) your take on my position and b) some non-substantive nitpicks.

My position is: you can play Narrativist by limiting yourself to Actor Stance while you're actively playing your character, provided that you use Author Stance effectively during character- and scenario creation. I even strongly support Premise-minded reflection and planning between sessions and during lulls within sessions.

In other words: while you're saying what your character does, it's possible to think of nothing but what your character would do (Actor Stance), and still play Narrativist. In more other words, you can't tell whether you're playing Nar or Sim by checking to see that you're staying in Actor Stance while your character's on stage.

Are there other ways to play Narrativist? Absolutely. Abso 100% lutely! My position is that it's possible to play Narrativist this way.

So: right on! I agree! And very good thinking bringing the Stances in.

-Vincent

That's funny, Vincent; I could've sworn you were saying something a bit different -- or maybe I'm misreading Paganini's post.

As I understood it, Vincent is saying that addressing Premise cannot, by its very nature, be a violation of character integrity. It is possible that a character can be drawn so shallowly that addressing Premise could violate the simplistic frame, but in that case you have an "unfit" character for Nar play.

By shifting focus to Stance, it seems to me that Vincent's point gets rather submerged. If what I've described above is accurate, then it makes no difference what the Stance is. In short, "character" and "Premise" are linked terms, inseparable, in Nar play. Therefore to say that addressing Premise can violate character is intrinsically illogical, meaningless, or just not Nar.

What is necessary to make that make sense, though, is that we recognize the possibility of character change and development, something that seems oddly hidden in these debates. Let me put it like this: if my character approaches a difficult situation and thinks, "There are three options for me here," but at the same time the Premise dictates that a fourth option would be best, then it must be true that my character is excessively limited. Forget about whether character thoughts are real and whatnot for the moment. Imagine that the character faces the situation, struggles with the three initial options, but then chooses (deliberately or otherwise) to take the fourth option. From a story perspective, what is now required is subsequent explanation and development. It is a given that the character has acted somewhat differently than we -- and he himself -- expected; why did he do so? People are not always consistent, and they change over time. Shouldn't the effect of addressing Premise often be a dramatic change in the character? If taking this hypothetical fourth option, i.e. going with Premise, would actually require that the character change in a fashion that seems impossible, implausible, and just dumb -- i.e. a violation -- then either the character is too narrow, or quite possibly the Premise is overdrawn to the point that it is Force.

People do not experience dramatic, intense moral conflicts and act exactly as they do when bumming around drinking beer with their friends. Nor do they suddenly turn into raving psychopaths or whatever (at least, when they do it's rarely interesting as a story). If "character" and "Premise" be defined coherently for Nar, then violation of character because of addressing Premise is intrinsically impossible under any circumstances.

Vincent, have I got you right? If not, what do you think?

Nathan,

It's a good post--yes, I'm familiar with the stances--and, yes, I saw Gareth's take on what I was doing and Vincent's as a fundamental disagreement. And if you agree that's fine too.

Now, this is very close to what I'd have said before this started: and it has a few issues for me.

1. It seems to me that the social reinforcement for All Actor Stance All The Time (which is what I'd call fully immersive play) will be identical to Sim play. Where there's a premise question in the situation (and, yes, this is what Ron says in that bit I quoted--but ...

Ralph (and others) say that one must be "mindful" of premise during Narrativist play. Being immersed throughout play does not sound to me like being mindful of premise (unless the term simply means 'aware of the in-game situation' which seems very unlikely to me).

2. A player who is doing fully immersed Narrativism would seem to be putting emphasis on exploring character and situation so long as they set up a human interest problem with their character or gravitated to one in the situation.

I mean this from both outside and inside that player's head.

3. I don't know about "creating premise"--short of kickers and making a character with in-built issues--I'm not sure what that looks like. Is expecting the GM to give me "a lot of meat" in that regard and being ready to speak up if I don't get it good enough?

Is a situation that's "ripe with premise" acceptable if I didn't use directoral power to create it?

Is a situation with only one (likely) in-game outcome acceptable if that outcome isn't central to my play but the method of getting there (answering the question) is.*

-Marco
* For the record, I don't know how feasible it is--but it seems logically possible from the essays so I'm getting it out there. The Assault on Everest scenario Mike postulated a while ago would seem to qualify.

Chris,

Are we raising the contentious issue of "the character does not exist" again? It seems like it, but I'm not sure.

my character approaches a difficult situation and thinks, "There are three options for me here," but at the same time the Premise dictates that a fourth option would be best, then it must be true that my character is excessively limited.

Aha! I am misreading you, Chris. But, we've arrived at the same place.

I can't speak for Vincent, but your conclusion exactly my take on it. Yes, these "out of character" changes in the face of dramatic conflict are not in fact "out of character." They define character, one instance at a time.

Paganini wrote:
It seems to me that Vincent desires Narrativist play in which the players never leave Actor stance. I support the notion that a player can Address Premise by means of character creation Techniques such that, during play, the player never has to leave Actor Stance. This is one kind of Nar play. It is an effective knid of Nar play. It is a kind of Nar play that I have personally experienced and enjoyed. My view here is contrary to Gareth's, in that I feel character creation is a part of play in this case, and thus we have Narrativism.

lumpley wrote: Nathan! We're home free. I agree with you about every single thing except a) your take on my position and b) some non-substantive nitpicks.

Marco wrote: Is this Story Now? It kinda seems like Story Then, Play Now to me--but I've never really understood the term anyway.

1. It seems to me that the social reinforcement for All Actor Stance All The Time (which is what I'd call fully immersive play) will be identical to Sim play. Where there's a premise question in the situation (and, yes, this is what Ron says in that bit I quoted--but ...

Ralph (and others) say that one must be "mindful" of premise during Narrativist play. Being immersed throughout play does not sound to me like being mindful of premise (unless the term simply means 'aware of the in-game situation' which seems very unlikely to me).

2. A player who is doing fully immersed Narrativism would seem to be putting emphasis on exploring character and situation so long as they set up a human interest problem with their character or gravitated to one in the situation.

I mean this from both outside and inside that player's head.

3. I don't know about "creating premise"--short of kickers and making a character with in-built issues--I'm not sure what that looks like. Is expecting the GM to give me "a lot of meat" in that regard and being ready to speak up if I don't get it good enough?

clehrich wrote: That's funny, Vincent; I could've sworn you were saying something a bit different -- or maybe I'm misreading Paganini's post.

Marco wrote: 1. It seems to me that the social reinforcement for All Actor Stance All The Time (which is what I'd call fully immersive play) will be identical to Sim play.

I think there's a lot of good points being made here. I rather like the conclusions. I just wanted to say this:

1. Ralph (Valamir) has said to me explitily that during Nar play one must be "mindful" of premise. If that's not part of the theory, fine--if it is--then this doesn't sound too much like that to me.

2. In response to MJ, my point wasn't so much about never stepping out of Actor stance, per-se, but that this mode of play seems indistinguishable from Sim play.

3. I remain less sure what Story Now means in this mode (maybe someone else can clarify).

-Marco

Paganini wrote: Chris, there's nothing new in your post.

The whole deal with Author Stance is that it allows you to violate character integrity, if you need to do that to get what you want. Retro-justification of inconsistency is an explicit part of Author Stance. In the mode of play Vincent describes, you will never need to do this.

Paganini wrote: My view here is contrary to Gareth's, in that I feel character creation is a part of play in this case, and thus we have Narrativism.

I have some actual play. Maybe it'll help and maybe it'll be a train wreck, I guess we'll find out. It's an old one so reply here. (Or in a new thread if you happen to have a reply that's off-topic for this one, of course.)

Adventures in RGFA Simulationism

As far as I'm concerned, what Stance(s) I was in, whether I was violating character integrity or ignoring it or adhering to it, when things became true - are all up for grabs. What's not up for grabs is whether the episode contributed to our addressing Premise: it did.

-Vincent

Hey Vincent,

*Warning: Long, windy post ahead where I try and sort things out for myself.

Indulge me for a sec. I do think that the episode contributed to the creation of theme, but I'm not so sure that you were addressing Premise. At least not in the small part of play that was in that thread.

When you decided to have Acanthus go up on the roof and start tossing rocks you had no idea why he was doing it or to what end. Only after retroactivley connecting his actions to the fairy stuff did you get a theme connection.

Story Now, as I understand it, is just the opposite. You would have Acanthus do whatever in order to address Premise then retroactively connect his actions to maintain plausibility.

Okay, so let's say you started off prioritizing character integrity. The only way for the rock tossing to result in the maintaining of character integrity was for you to ret-con Acanthus' actions in a way that would make sense to you and Meg and Emily.

You didn't start off prioritizing the address of Premise unless we throw in a special "fishing for Premise" qualifier. Wait.. I've been typing and trying to find out what was bothering me about this and I think I just did.

Nathan and I were discussing different sides of Nar play the other day. He was coming from the angle that when you address Premise you want to see a particular outcome or effect. I said that's not necessarily true, you might just want to set up a particular conflict that WILL address Premise but prefer the outcome to be more of a surprise.

Normally I'm inclined to think that there already has to be the potential for addressing Premise (the players at least sense a moral/ethical issue on the horizon) when character actions are determined for Story Now to happen. In this case though, you seem to have said "what can Acanthus do that will be in-character and provide Premise addressing possibilities?" without any idea of what those possibilities were before having Acanthus take action.

Well, I think you were probably in Author stance through the bit of interaction in the play thread. I think you did everything bass ackwards from what I'm used to from my own play, but I do think that you were doing Story Now. With the caveat that you weren't willing to slack on character integrity in order to get there.

The question of "when things became true" is an interesting one. If we say that nothing becomes "true" until it enters the SiS, what does that mean for ret-conning a situation in order to address Premise?

I think that example also comments on the whole "character fitness" idea. It's hard for a character to ever appear "unfit" if you choose your character's actions first then use ret-con techniques to address Premise with those actions.

-Chris

For my part, this discussion touches on my preferred mode of play (I have some issues with the meaning of Force under such constructs but it's not that important).

However: I don't see this as Story Now --and-- This sounds to me like El Dorado (the player has Sim both priorities and Nar priorities at the same time).

I recognize that at some point the situation might mutate so that one or the other would "take precidence" but if this is seen as dysfunction (and it'll always be because of either a human being or the dice--and the dice, I'm not sure "count") then I don't think that small dysfunctional speed-bumps would cause the play to fall into one or the other CA.*

-Marco
* the idea that a player who decides to change address vs. character or character over address is choosing one or another CA doesn't make sense to me if the context is that the player is doing whatever s/he has to to get back into immersed Actor Stance.