The Forge Reference Project

 

Topic: Narrativism
Started by: Paganini
Started on: 1/15/2002
Board: GNS Model Discussion


On 1/15/2002 at 8:21pm, Paganini wrote:
Narrativism

This came up in another thread (the one about player vs. GM power), but I thought it deserved it's own topic. Also, it's more appropriate for here, than for the design forum. :)

The thing is, Ron just clarified his definition of narrativism to me, and I'm not satisfied with it personally. I think of myself as a narrativist player, but I don't fit his definition.

For one thing, I'm uncomfortable with the idea that the story produced by a game must meet some subjective quality level before the game can be called narrative. According to the GNS definition, the focus of a narrativist is having a good story once the game is over. Who decides what "good" is? How good does the story have to be before the game is narrative?

IMO, the story doesn't have to be "good," so long as the people involved had fun making it. That's the nut of the issue to me... my enjoyment as a narrative player is derived from the act of creating the story, rather than some nebulous rating of the resulting story's value. (For those of you following the other thread, this is what I meant by Story Exploration.)

So what do you guys think about this? Is there any validity in this distinction? Using Ron's terms, what would you call someone who doesn't care about the quality of the completed story, so long as enjoyment was derived from the creation of it?

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On 1/15/2002 at 8:31pm, Marco wrote:
I think "Good's" gotta be up to the participants ...

Any attempt at an objectivation of "good", when it comes to fiction--and, I think, roleplaying-generated storylines in particular--threatens to slide in sheer snobbery.

If you think it's good, it's good. That's it.

On the other hand, you can enjoy a story for reasons other than it's "critical merrit" (where you're the critic)--so keep that in mind.

Finally: someone might try to define good in terms of literary merrit. There's a whole school of criticism that exists to do this in literature. It relies on critics and cannon. There are not critics (other than the participants) and there there is no cannon in RPG circles so I don't think that's golbally applicable (i.e. it might work for Joe, but Susan is perfectly right--and intellectually correct and sophisticated in doing so--to reject it).

-Marco
[ Edited to add: As little as I could possibly speak for Ron, it sounds like a missinterpertation. I can't _imagine_ him saying a story has to meet some standard to be Narrativist play. ]

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On 1/15/2002 at 9:12pm, jburneko wrote:
RE: Narrativism

I think this ties into the whole Story Result vs. Story Creation thing. The purpose of Narrativist play is to CONCIOUSLY address a central "moral" (broad definition) conflict in a consistent and thematic way. If the addressing of a moral conflict happens as an accident or a side-effect of play then it's not Narrativist play. You might very well end up with a story but if you weren't conciously trying to create a story through role-playing then it isn't Narrativism.

This is a common argument I run across that I'm constantly trying to figure out how to best address. Many a fistey Simulationist who claim they are story oriented and that they don't railroad use this as their argument: "If you create a logically complete and consistent setting/situation a story will naturally arrise from the exploration of that setting/situation." I know, because I used to use this argument myself. I used to believe this whole heartily. Then Ron said something rather profound to me, "Life is not a Story."

So the rest of the conversation now goes like this:

Me: "But the world and situations you live in are logically complete and consistent. Is your life a story?"

Simulationist: "Yes."

Me: "How so?"

The Simulationist then proceeds to tell me an amusing anecdote from their last camping trip. And that's what good non-railroaded Simulationist play procduces: a series of interesting, "fun", accidental anecdotes with the boring bits in between basically cut out.

But an anecdote or series of anecdotes is not a story in the Narrativist sense. There does not exist a concious choice of a single unifying Premise, nor is there a concious creation of a Theme from each of the characters. Theme, here meaning an action derived commentary on the central Premise.

If you have that you have Narrativism. How well you succeed at producing something 'good' is a matter of personal aesthetic. Take my Deadlands game for example. I think it's a fairly Narrativist game because I keep pushing a moral question. How much evil can you allow in your good? It's an examination of do the ends justify the means? It's kind of a weak Premise but everyone genuinely cares where the other players stand on this.

Does my game produce a 'good' story? I doubt it. It's my first attempt at serious Narrativist play. The players are not quite comfortable and don't fully understand what I'm trying to do. In my opinion the game is a train-wreck of ideas and rather unfocused. If it were written down I think it would be a rather poorly constructed story. BUT, it IS a story in the Narrativist sense. We are TRYING to create a story of litterary merit. We're just not very good at it yet.

Does this make sense?

Jesse

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On 1/15/2002 at 9:38pm, Clinton R. Nixon wrote:
RE: Narrativism

I think what is meant by "good" here is complete. That is, a story, by definition, has several elements, and much roleplay (and real life) does not contain those elements. I'll go through them here so as to make sense.

- protagonist and antagonist: These are actual characters in the story that are the real movers and shakers. In an RPG game, there are often multiple protagonists. The antagonist must directly be opposed to the protagonists in reference to the conflict.

- conflict: A story revolves around one conflict (or goal - I'll refer to them both as conflict.) The conflict is what the story's about, and reflects the game's Premise. In a Simulationist game, there is not a clear cut conflict (at least not defined before play.)

- complications: A story has complications, smaller conflicts that lead up and drive toward the main conflict. These must lead toward the main conflict. A random encounter in the wilderness is not a complication. It's a direct element of Simulation and modelling another world. It has no reference to the conflict, thereby eliminating it from being part of a story.

- turning point: This is the most overlooked part of stories (both written and in gameplay.) There must be a turning point, a moment where the protagonist(s) make a decision or come to a realization that not only allows them to resolve the conflict, but forces them to.

- climax and resolution: The conflict is faced and resolved. The protagonists may not win, but they face the conflict and end their involvement with it. At the end of this, the conflict must be resolved completely.

---

This is where much of the confusion about story comes in. A story is not a sequence of events. A story is a sequence of events that are all about one thing, determined ahead of time. While a random, or even pre-plotted, sequence of events may lead to an enjoyable time, and an enjoyable anecdote, without the above elements, it cannot be considered story.

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On 1/15/2002 at 9:40pm, joshua neff wrote:
RE: Narrativism

I wouldn't get hung up on the use of the word "good". I don't think Ron means it in any sort of "objective" sense--I know I don't. When I say narrativism strives to create a "good" story, that means a story that is satisfying to the audience, which in an RPG is the play group.

The more important word is "narrative". Narrativism isn't about, as Ron has noted, "story after the fact", it's "story being created right now". This means a number of factors:

--The players have to have some sort of hand in authoring the story. This can range from the "vanilla" narrativist techniques of story points (or some other currency that allows the players to pay to affect the story) to further out in the field techniques (examples of which I'm blanking on at the moment--bleah). This doesn't necessarily mean the GM is rendered "redundant", but it does mean that the story cannot be predetermined, or even primarily authored, by the GM. For example, a Call of Cthulhu scenario that forces the PCs into certain paths so that no matter what they do, they end up at the final location for the big showdown with the evil cultists (or whatever).

--The PCs must be the protagonists of the story. Which means that it is their issues that drive the story. The narrative may involve a mystery of some kind, or appear to revolve around some mcguffin, but in actual fact, the narrative comes from the players' conflicts, & the central issues, the thorny problems (the Premise), must be resolved by the players.

There may be other stuff I'm forgetting, but I think that's a good start.

Now here's the thing: a lot of people involved in RPGs think of themselves as "story-concerned". I blame the big push of the 90's for "ROLEplaying over ROLLplaying" garbage & White Wolf's big "storytelling is the best!" that fostered this whole "yeah, epic stories all the way!" attitude. But if you look at a lot of the "story-centered" games (White Wolf, I'm lookin' at you), they don't facilitate story-creation at all. There's nothing in, for example, Vampire: the Masquerade, besides so lip-service to how important story is, to really push the PCs as authors/audience of a story in which thorny issues are addressed & resolved. Not anymore than any other RPG.

But if your enjoyment comes from "creation of the story at the moment", rather than looking back & saying "yes, that story was good", then that, to me, is narrativism. It's not about creating "classics of literature" or anything like that. It's about "story right now" rather than "thanks to some tricks by the GM & some careful pushing of the PCs into pursuing certain pathways, a good story was played out".

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On 1/15/2002 at 9:42pm, joshua neff wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Okay, having just read Clinton's post, which he slipped in before mine, I'd say he hits the nail on the head. "Complete" it is.

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On 1/15/2002 at 9:49pm, Epoch wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Paganini wrote:
I think of myself as a narrativist player, but I don't fit his definition.


Hey, man, look on the bright side. I don't think of myself as narrativist, but Ron keeps telling me I am. :P

Anyhow, I think that there remains a semantic issue here:

Story vs. Sequence-of-events-in-time-which-may-be-interesting

A lot of people think that the latter is a "story," which is an arguably correct definition, but, if you use that, then the term "story" has almost no semantic value -- it can mean pretty much anything.

A "story" by the definition Ron uses -- and I'm comfortable putting words in his mouth, because this is one of those areas of GNS that comes up a lot -- is something more than an interesting series of events.

Okay, done putting words in Ron's mouth, back to speaking for myself.

So, the natural question that follows is, "if story's more than a sequence of interesting events, what more is it?" Now, I can answer that for myself -- I would say words to the effect of narrative flow of the action, interplaying thematic elements, and all that jazz -- but, fundamentally, I don't think that it matters. You and your group decide for yourself what more a story is than a sequence of events. If you're willing to sacrifice other aspects of game play for that "whatever else," whatever you may decide it is, you're playing in a Narrativist style.

And, thus, we've neatly avoided the "external standard" problem. Your stories don't have to be "good" by any definition of mine, they just have to be more than events.

This definition of story also neatly solves your original problem -- why can't players be "creating a story" if they act purely from "within" their characters? Because, by definition, a story involves meta-world elements (it's more than a series of in-world events). Thus, if players are to create a story, they must be able to create meta-world elements (even if they do so totally covertly from hidden author stance).

* * *

Now, you'll recall from the very beginning of this thread that I mentioned that I don't consider myself a narrativist player. There was a reason for that -- I wasn't just being snarky.

In my own wholly subjective opinion, too much Narrativism leads to stories which aren't as interesting as the series-of-events that you get out of less Narrativist play. I like the less focussed, more slice-of-life-y approach that you get from primarily Simulative play.

I do use Narrativist techniques to push away from purely slice-of-life play, but I keep them subtle and small, so as to maintain a sense that the PC's are real people doing real things that, I feel, you don't get quite the flavour of from highly Narrativist play.

So, that's my final point in this perhaps controversial message -- that you should remember that just because one thing is a "story" and the other is a "series of events" doesn't mean that the story is more interesting or compelling or evocative or able-to-comment-on-the-human-condition than the series of events.

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On 1/15/2002 at 9:51pm, Marco wrote:
Story oriented

jburneko wrote:
This is a common argument I run across that I'm constantly trying to figure out how to best address. Many a fistey Simulationist who claim they are story oriented and that they don't railroad use this as their argument: "If you create a logically complete and consistent setting/situation a story will naturally arrise from the exploration of that setting/situation."


A coupla notes:
1. The "fiesty" simmy is quite right (so are you and that's why you're having trouble addressing this). They and they players are trying to create a story. At the end of the night a story was created. The reason you're not getting through to them is because, at the core of it, you're arguing method and he's talking result--and both are "right" (although each of you only want one to be).

If you tell him: "I define Story Creation as roleplaying with player-authorial power and/or _specific intent_ to create a story of literary merrit" I think he might agree with you. Hell, why not? If I define real Role-Playing as LARPing and tell you you're not doing it, are you gonna argue? Only if you want to quibble about definitions. Otherwise you'll agree that under my definition you aren't really roleplaying and walk quietly away (those fiesty pencil and paper guys, I swear ...)

2. They might go on about how suspension of disbelief is necessary for them to enjoy the story and that if they aren't experiencing it, no matter how good it is, it isn't working for them.

They're still story-oriented, they just want that immersive quality one gets from a really good book or movie. They still might want all of the drama, the literary themes, whatever--they just want it from a different direction than you're pushing it from.

3. Final Note: In many Sim games the conscious choice of a theme *does* exists (ever made a self-destructive character--and then had a simmy GM give him a great chance to self destruct?). My standard CoC character is someone drinking himself to death--when the monsters get him first: conscious theme, created by the player, executed by the GM. Not Narrativist at all.

-Marco

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On 1/15/2002 at 10:05pm, Clinton R. Nixon wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Two quick points:

Epoch wrote:
So, the natural question that follows is, "if story's more than a sequence of interesting events, what more is it?" Now, I can answer that for myself -- I would say words to the effect of narrative flow of the action, interplaying thematic elements, and all that jazz -- but, fundamentally, I don't think that it matters. You and your group decide for yourself what more a story is than a sequence of events. If you're willing to sacrifice other aspects of game play for that "whatever else," whatever you may decide it is, you're playing in a Narrativist style.


I flatly, whole-heartedly disagree. The word "story" has a definition, just like the word "theorum" or "equation." Literary criticism is not just about reviewing books - it is a science, with established terms.

I might be confused, Epoch, but it seems you are saying that a story is whatever a group of people decide it is. That sort of relativism applied to the definition of a word would not fly in one of the "hard sciences" and I can't imagine it's correct here. (I also think it's the downfall of America, but go figure.)

(Of course, I could be wrong. This should probably be said, especially since I just grabbed a dictionary and looked up 'story' to find, " An account or recital of an event or a series of events, either true or fictitious.")

Point the second:

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. If you feel you are an "X," but according to Ron's essay, you're not - then you are not an "X" according to Ron's essay. I know that's redundant, but look at an example:

Let's say you believe in an absolute good and absolute evil. You believe in the good, and you believe your soul will travel to a peaceful afterlife if you make sure and do good things. You call yourself a Christian.

That's really great for you, but according to the Bible, a Christian must accept that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and also must repent of sins. The soul of a Christian is saved not through works, but through faith.

(Note: Whoa. Where did that come from? I've been re-reading the Bible for literary merit. I'm not some sort of nutty religious fellow, and I'm making no condemnation or anything - which is a point I'll bring up again. Hell, I'm not considered a Christian by the Bible.)

So - according to the essay on Christianity (the New Testament of the Bible), someone who does not follow the above tenets is not a Christian. Accordingly, someone who does not follow the definition of Narrativist set forth in Ron's essay is not one according to the essary. There's no condemnation there, but it eliminates the argument that "I know I'm a narrativist, but Ron's essay says I'm not, so it's wrong."

The definition is valid within its scope, and your definition is valid within your scope.

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On 1/15/2002 at 10:34pm, Epoch wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Clinton R Nixon wrote:
Two quick points:

Epoch wrote:
So, the natural question that follows is, "if story's more than a sequence of interesting events, what more is it?" Now, I can answer that for myself -- I would say words to the effect of narrative flow of the action, interplaying thematic elements, and all that jazz -- but, fundamentally, I don't think that it matters. You and your group decide for yourself what more a story is than a sequence of events. If you're willing to sacrifice other aspects of game play for that "whatever else," whatever you may decide it is, you're playing in a Narrativist style.


I flatly, whole-heartedly disagree. The word "story" has a definition, just like the word "theorum" or "equation." Literary criticism is not just about reviewing books - it is a science, with established terms.


Actually, like "theorum," "equation," "good," "evil," "christian," or whatever, "story" has a lot of definitions. As you point out below, at least one of those definitions directly contradicts the distinction that Ron and other Narrativists draw. That's okay. Specialized fields often use more circumscribed definitions of terms within their purview than is the generally accepted definition.

Clinton R Nixon wrote: I might be confused, Epoch, but it seems you are saying that a story is whatever a group of people decide it is. That sort of relativism applied to the definition of a word would not fly in one of the "hard sciences" and I can't imagine it's correct here. (I also think it's the downfall of America, but go figure.)


Well, I think you're a little confused, which is doubtless my fault. Let me lay it out in a more detailed manner:

I'm not a hardcore relativist, but certain things are a matter of taste. I'm not comfortable saying that, for example, "a story must have rising action, a climax, and a denoument." First of all, there are doubtless many examples of stories (real stories, written in real books, by real authors) which do not have that kind of rising and falling action. Secondly, why should that be definitive? Why not any one of a million other aspects which, together, make up the holistic whole of "story"? (And, mind you, the limited definition of "story" that we use, which, as you found out, is not the commonly accepted one).

You compare literature to the hard sciences. That's great and all, but you should realize that a "story" isn't something like an "electron," or "the electroweak force," which can be easily defined. If you want to keep the hard-science analogy, "story" is more like "organic chemistry." Where exactly does "organic chemistry" end and physics or biology begin?

The real answer is that any hard-and-fast line you draw will be arbitrary, and sub-optimal in some way. The only way to define one of these big, somewhat hazy concepts is by inference -- say, "It's things like this."

It actually shows that I'm not a relativist and am an absolutist when I say that those terms still have value, despite not having a hard-and-fast definition.

So, dragging this back to something like the topic, I'm saying that if Paganini wants to be a Narrativist who doesn't respect the concept of (to pick on my old example) "rising action, climax, denoument," but still values (again, for example) a focused plot centered on a moral theme and with protagonized characters, that's fine. It's the act of sacrificing other priorities for meta-world "story" priorities that is Narrativist, not toeing the line on the exact set of priorities and to the exact degree.

Further, I claim that regardless of what personal subset of the broader "story" definition you're interested in, you behave the same way -- you want the same things (like meta-world control) that other Narrativists want.

Clinton R Nixon wrote:
I've said this before, but it bears repeating. If you feel you are an "X," but according to Ron's essay, you're not - then you are not an "X" according to Ron's essay. I know that's redundant, but look at an example:


I actually don't think that the definitions of "an Xist person" in Ron's essay are currently meaningful.

He proposes that "Gamist" (for example) means nothing more than "This person tends to make role-playing decisions in line with Gamist goals." (This is a direct quote from his essay, for the record).

What does that mean? I tend to make role-playing decisions in line with Gamist goals, but I'm clearly less inclined towards Gamism than towards either Simulationism or Narrativism. So does he mean "This person tends make most role-playing decisions in line with Gamist goals"? If so, what does "most" mean? A "vanilla Narrativist," as the term has been described in this forum, and as Ron has, to some extent, labeled my own play style, makes "most" of his decision based on Simulationist concerns -- Narrativism comes out at certain, fairly rare, rather important points.

Certain people are so strongly identified with one goal or another that it's useful to say that they are "a" Narrativist, Gamist, or Simulationist. For others, I don't think that the essay describes well how to label them.

That's largely a discussion for another time -- I mention it primarily to say that Paganini might well get a lot out of Narrativism even if he's not "a Narrativist," whatever that means.

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On 1/15/2002 at 10:39pm, Clinton R. Nixon wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Epoch wrote:
Certain people are so strongly identified with one goal or another that it's useful to say that they are "a" Narrativist, Gamist, or Simulationist. For others, I don't think that the essay describes well how to label them.

That's largely a discussion for another time -- I mention it primarily to say that Paganini might well get a lot out of Narrativism even if he's not "a Narrativist," whatever that means.


Nothing much else to say here except I completely agree with these points. I think we can all get a lot out of each of the "isms," even if we don't self-identify with one of them.

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On 1/15/2002 at 11:08pm, Ron Edwards wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Um, just to clarify ...

Mike (Epoch), as best I can tell without playing with you, your play corresponds to the Simulationist mode in which "story" emerges as a GM-retrofit to essentially laissez-faire player actions that are not particularly plot/story/theme oriented. This would be Narrativist if the players were oriented toward Premise/Theme/etc, but since they (ie the group, collectively speaking) are not, then the priority of play pretty much ends up being Character Exploration and/or Setting Exploration.

This mode of play is not described in my essay because I forgot or failed to conceive of it at the time of writing.

Correct me if my arm-chair, long-distance impression is wrong, but that is the impression I have at the moment. So no, I don't consider you a closet Narrativist (any more); I had my suspicions for a bit there, but subsequent posts led me to the current impression.

Best,
Ron

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On 1/15/2002 at 11:23pm, Epoch wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Ron Edwards wrote:
Um, just to clarify ...

Mike (Epoch), as best I can tell without playing with you, your play corresponds to the Simulationist mode in which "story" emerges as a GM-retrofit to essentially laissez-faire player actions that are not particularly plot/story/theme oriented. This would be Narrativist if the players were oriented toward Premise/Theme/etc, but since they (ie the group, collectively speaking) are not, then the priority of play pretty much ends up being Character Exploration and/or Setting Exploration.

This mode of play is not described in my essay because I forgot or failed to conceive of it at the time of writing.

Correct me if my arm-chair, long-distance impression is wrong, but that is the impression I have at the moment. So no, I don't consider you a closet Narrativist (any more); I had my suspicions for a bit there, but subsequent posts led me to the current impression.


Muh bad. I hadn't realized that you'd changed your opinion. Sorry to mis-state about you.

Hope I did get it right that you think of story as more than "a series of events."

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On 1/15/2002 at 11:39pm, Le Joueur wrote:
Organic Chemistry versus Biochemistry

Epoch wrote: You compare literature to the hard sciences. That's great and all, but you should realize that a "story" isn't something like an "electron," or "the electroweak force," which can be easily defined. If you want to keep the hard-science analogy, "story" is more like "organic chemistry." Where exactly does "organic chemistry" end and physics or biology begin?

Oh wait! I know this one..."Organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds; biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl."

You know, I think we're all getting a little too serious....

Fang Langford

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On 1/16/2002 at 12:13am, Gordon C. Landis wrote:
Story-focused

Marco wrote:
They're still story-oriented, they just want that immersive quality one gets from a really good book or movie.


This touches on the "Impossible Thing" Ron clarified somewhere recently . . . take a look at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1213&highlight=impossible+thing to get his words on the subject. Here's how I think about it (and my first month or three at the Forge was spent trying to get clear on just what folks meant by "story" in "narrativism"):

When the creation of a "good" Story is best served by NOT maintaining that immersive quality - do you break immersion? If so, that's a Narrativist decision. If not, it's a Simulationist choice. The claim in GNS is that these issues WILL come into conflict from time to time - a claim that makes sense to me. When someone says "I only like story when I get to stay immersed", what they're really saying is "there's something I consider more important than story."

That's how I've been thinking. Now, there are folks who seem to LIKE hybrids of various sorts - choosing Narrative-style story for a while, or in certain situations, then switching to Sim-immersion focus at other times/situations. If it works for them, great.

Gordon

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On 1/16/2002 at 12:47am, jburneko wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Ron Edwards wrote:
Mike (Epoch), as best I can tell without playing with you, your play corresponds to the Simulationist mode in which "story" emerges as a GM-retrofit to essentially laissez-faire player actions that are not particularly plot/story/theme oriented. This would be Narrativist if the players were oriented toward Premise/Theme/etc, but since they (ie the group, collectively speaking) are not, then the priority of play pretty much ends up being Character Exploration and/or Setting Exploration.


This is a bit off topic but this description REALLY struck a cord with me. This sounds an awful lot like the situation my Deadlands game is in. I certainly didn't expect my players to switch mindsets overnight. But as I said, I call a lot of my players Simulationist-By-Habit in that they REALLY do want a story in the Narrativist sense but either a) don't think it's possible through role-playing or b) don't know how to go about it.

I find that the best way to bring the inner Narrativist out a Simulationist-By-Habit is to start with this mode of play and then between sessions when you're just hanging out start talking about their character from a litterary analytical point of view. If they start looking at you weird then they're genuinely not interested in Narrativism and it's best to back off. But I find 9 times out 10, the player will really start getting into what you're saying and pretty soon they're bringing up stuff between sessions themselves. I assume that eventually, they'll start doing this stuff during the session as well. I'm not quite to this last stage yet. But quite a number of my players HAVE started thinking about theme and plot and premise between sessions.

Anyway, that was a complete side note that just needed to be said. Please continue with the discussion as normal.

Jesse

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On 1/16/2002 at 5:55am, Paganini wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Clinton R Nixon wrote:
I think what is meant by "good" here is complete. That is, a story, by definition, has several elements, and much roleplay (and real life) does not contain those elements. I'll go through them here so as to make sense.


This makes the most sense that I've heard. My question still stands though... what would you call *me?* I'm not a simulationist, because accuracy is not my overriding concern. I'm not (usually) a gamist because I don't play with competition in mind. I focus on drama, and on story creation, but not neccesarily with the goal of *completeing* a story. I don't seem to fit... if a complete story is required for narrativism, then I'm not a narrativist, because I don't care if he story is ever finished. Think of me as the gamer equivalent of Robert Jordan times ten. :) It's not the end that's important, it's everything that we do along the way.


This is where much of the confusion about story comes in. A story is not a sequence of events. A story is a sequence of events that are all about one thing, determined ahead of time. While a random, or even pre-plotted, sequence of events may lead to an enjoyable time, and an enjoyable anecdote, without the above elements, it cannot be considered story.


Well, my games are a sequence of events that are all about one thing, so I meet that requirement. But my games are not actively structured in the way that you describe previously (that is, I don't sit down and think about the entire game or campaign from begining to end. I don't schedule turnign points or climaxes, or anything like that. Incorporating literary elements into a story is not a priority in my games, beyond any immediate value that such a construct brings.

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On 1/16/2002 at 5:58am, Paganini wrote:
RE: Narrativism

joshua neff wrote:
But if your enjoyment comes from "creation of the story at the moment", rather than looking back & saying "yes, that story was good", then that, to me, is narrativism. It's not about creating "classics of literature" or anything like that. It's about "story right now" rather than "thanks to some tricks by the GM & some careful pushing of the PCs into pursuing certain pathways, a good story was played out".


Yeah, this is exactly how I've always felt! But this doesnt' jive with what others are saying about narrativism, in that it requires complete stories, or traditional literary elements. "In the moment story creation" is an exact characterization of my play style.

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On 1/16/2002 at 6:06am, Paganini wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Clinton R Nixon wrote:
That's really great for you, but according to the Bible, a Christian must accept that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and also must repent of sins. The soul of a Christian is saved not through works, but through faith.

(Note: Whoa. Where did that come from? I've been re-reading the Bible for literary merit. I'm not some sort of nutty religious fellow, and I'm making no condemnation or anything - which is a point I'll bring up again. Hell, I'm not considered a Christian by the Bible.)


Wow. This is totally off topic, but I am really, really impressed. Very few people get this out of the Bible. (This is even true for a lot of people who call themselves Christians.) I *am* a Christian, and I can't tell you how many times I find people who say they're christians, and then go on and on about doing good works. It is extremely unusual, Clinton, to find someone as accurate as you are. Kudos, whether you're a believer or not. :)

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On 1/16/2002 at 2:18pm, Ron Edwards wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Hey Paganini,

It's not valid to define or recognize your play style, without actually playing with you. Anyone can say, "I'm all about story," or whatever. As demonstrated in the last 48 hours, all manner of confusion was generated by a long-ago post of mine to Mike Sullivan (Epoch), in that he believed I had "classified" him in some way.

I'd like to point out, however, some contradictions in what you've presented. On the one hand, you say that your priority in-play is story creation now, as described by Josh. That would be Narrativist - if by story you are talking about conflict, resolution, and theme. Yet on the other hand, you state that such things are not your priority.

This leads me to conclude that you apparently prioritize "creation of something now" during role-playing, but in terms of my essay that can only be identified as Exploration, what all role-players do (granted, some more than others). Until you are able to identify "what for, in terms of your own actual behavior during play, that's as far as it can go.

I also want to point out that your interpretation of Simulationism as prioritizing "accuracy" is also badly flawed. My definition has nothing to do with accuracy, but rather with maximal (prioritized) Exploration of one or more of the five listed elements (character, setting, situation, color, system). The historical "tag" for identifying such play is an overriding concern for in-game causality without metagame "interference."

Best,
Ron

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On 1/16/2002 at 5:50pm, Paganini wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Ron Edwards wrote:
I'd like to point out, however, some contradictions in what you've presented. On the one hand, you say that your priority in-play is story creation now, as described by Josh. That would be Narrativist - if by story you are talking about conflict, resolution, and theme. Yet on the other hand, you state that such things are not your priority.

This leads me to conclude that you apparently prioritize "creation of something now" during role-playing, but in terms of my essay that can only be identified as Exploration, what all role-players do (granted, some more than others). Until you are able to identify "what for, in terms of your own actual behavior during play, that's as far as it can go.


<nods> Yeah, okay. As a matter of fact, when trying to describe my play style to others I've been calling it "story exploration." I don't approach the game as being a complete story, but rather as building a story, scene by scene.

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On 1/16/2002 at 6:26pm, Epoch wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Ron Edwards wrote:
Hey Paganini,

It's not valid to define or recognize your play style, without actually playing with you. Anyone can say, "I'm all about story," or whatever. As demonstrated in the last 48 hours, all manner of confusion was generated by a long-ago post of mine to Mike Sullivan (Epoch), in that he believed I had "classified" him in some way.


Y'know, in all fairness, I regret even mentioning the little narrativist comment. It was just a throw-away line that I didn't think too much about -- an attempt to be funny and to empathize with Paganini.

I feel like it overshadowed the rest of my post, which, I thought, had some interesting comments on Narrativism and a nice re-statement of why the Impossible Thing is impossible.

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On 1/16/2002 at 7:02pm, Marco wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Hi Epoch,

It *was* a good post.

Epoch wrote:
This definition of story also neatly solves your original problem -- why can't players be "creating a story" if they act purely from "within" their characters? Because, by definition, a story involves meta-world elements (it's more than a series of in-world events). Thus, if players are to create a story, they must be able to create meta-world elements (even if they do so totally covertly from hidden author stance).


Simply creating a character with a) a back-story and b) an intended arc is a narrative act. It's an act that you, as the player, can play out in a campagin that requires no OOC actions and is something a great many simulationist players do by habbit. The player doesn't create plot elements with director stance and isn't sacrificing immersion (arguable, I guess, but quibbling).

It's also got the prerequisit meta-aspects (the player makes the authorial decision about how the character will 'come of age' (say, first time a friend dies), 'explore a premise inherent in his design' (a Vampire character designed to die or feed off of loved ones), self destruct, etc.).

Is his series of events concerning this character (designed at conception time to address a premise) *not* a story?


In my own wholly subjective opinion, too much Narrativism leads to stories which aren't as interesting as the series-of-events that you get out of less Narrativist play.


It's also possible to approach a given game (especially a short one) as an exploration (in the meaning of expeirencing) the GM's story. If you've got a fantastic GM you may enjoy acting through his story the same way you would a good book. If this is the case, you might demand all those literary elements of theme, foreshadowing, symbolism, etc.

That's one of the issues I have with the use of "story oriented" to apply to Narrativism. It seems patently and trivially incorrect. A better term would be "Authorial-power oriented", IMO (no one would 'claim' to be Authorial-Power oriented who wasn't).

-Marco

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On 1/16/2002 at 7:27pm, Epoch wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Marco wrote:
Hi Epoch,

It *was* a good post.


I feel validated! :)

Marco wrote:
Simply creating a character with a) a back-story and b) an intended arc is a narrative act. It's an act that you, as the player, can play out in a campagin that requires no OOC actions and is something a great many simulationist players do by habbit. The player doesn't create plot elements with director stance and isn't sacrificing immersion (arguable, I guess, but quibbling).


I'd say that it is a minimally author-stance act if, as in your example below, the person does something like declare "I'll come of age when my first friend dies." If it's more of a, "I'm making this character and I suspect that the way I've made him will bias him towards an interesting future, but if it's not, then, oh-well, I'll play my character first and work on interest second," then I'd say it's a pretty Simulationist act.

Marco wrote: It's also got the prerequisit meta-aspects (the player makes the authorial decision about how the character will 'come of age' (say, first time a friend dies), 'explore a premise inherent in his design' (a Vampire character designed to die or feed off of loved ones), self destruct, etc.).

Is his series of events concerning this character (designed at conception time to address a premise) *not* a story?


Well, fundamentally, however you design a character, you're going to come into decisions in play. Someone dies. Now, do you think, "Hey, someone died, that's a good (plausible) pretext to advance my coming-of-age conception of this character"? Or do you think, "Hmmm, what exactly was my character's relationship with the dearly departed? How would that affect him? Yup, just as I suspected when I designed the character, it'll advance my coming-of-age concept!"

The first is an example of Narrativist (possibly covert Narrativist) play, in my opinion. The second is Simulationist.

Now, if the results are identical, is it "not" a story? That's a semantic issue, and, while I recognize that semantics are important in terms of efficient communication, I confess that I have very little patience for them. I'm happy to call a "story" only something which is created in a certain way, though your suggested term may be better.

Marco wrote:
It's also possible to approach a given game (especially a short one) as an exploration (in the meaning of expeirencing) the GM's story. If you've got a fantastic GM you may enjoy acting through his story the same way you would a good book. If this is the case, you might demand all those literary elements of theme, foreshadowing, symbolism, etc.

That's one of the issues I have with the use of "story oriented" to apply to Narrativism. It seems patently and trivially incorrect. A better term would be "Authorial-power oriented", IMO (no one would 'claim' to be Authorial-Power oriented who wasn't).


I agree, or perhaps I agree if you modify that to saying, "Calling Narrativism 'story-oriented' without immediately qualifying it to say that it's a subset of all story-oriented play is patently and trivially incorrect."

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On 1/16/2002 at 7:46pm, Ron Edwards wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Marco,

You're hacking at a straw man. My essay explicitly states that the term "story-oriented" is too problematic to be used as a definition or description of anything, much less Narrativism. I describe many ways in which "story," sensu lato, may be applied across the various sorts of GNS applications, and I even added to that list on a recent thread. Further discussion of why "story-oriented" causes problems is not raising objections to my definitions, but rather supporting the reasons why I came up with my definitions.

More generally, I should also like to point out that the definition of Narrativism says nothing about foreshadowing, symbolism, or other (often bogus) memorized items from Lit 101. Narrativism relies on (1) a Premise that intrigues the actual humans (because it involves problematic human passions that we can understand and ponder), and (2) addressing it as authors through the actual process of role-playing fictional protagonists' actions. That, and that alone, is the "traditional literary structure" people sometimes refer to.

Best,
Ron

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On 1/16/2002 at 8:25pm, Marco wrote:
Straw Men ...

Hey Ron,
Your essay is nicely clear on that point and I wasn't refering to it (what was that you quoted to me about the sun rising and setting?) I responded to this:


"Many a fistey Simulationist who claim they are story oriented and that they don't railroad ..."


Jesse then goes on to explain (with your argument, he says) why they're wrong: 'real-life isn't a story.'

A) the're '_claiming_ to be story oriented' (read: they aren't really)
B) they're wrong (a judgement I think is reminiscient of 20-something WW players in the mid-90's)
C) here's why they're wrong (surprise: they're not Narrativists)

I'm answering that.

-Marco
[ Edited: more to the point, I'm pointing out that there'll be no confusion, argument, or semantic-debate if the Simulationist's "claim" was responded to by: "Are you into playing with authorial power in order to create and resolve plot?"

The answer would either be 'No--I'm that other kind of story-oriented.' (end of discussion) or 'What are you talking about?' which would then result in productive/educational agreement. ]

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On 1/16/2002 at 10:15pm, jburneko wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Marco,

I'd like to apologize for the tone of my original post in this thread. It was hastily written and poorly thought out. I didn't mean to imply that no story at ALL was a result of the play described. I only meant to say that I have a hard time trying to convey to more the 'traditional' role-players what I mean when I say I'm into roleplaying as a story-creation medium.

It was more or less a reaffirmation that story-oriented is a useless term. Because when a Simulationist and a Narrativist say they are story-oriented they mean two different things. This ties into people I describe as Simulationist-By-Habit. These people mean story the way a Narrativist does but constantly slam their heads into walls by trying to achieve it using Simulationist asumptions and techniques. I speak from personal experience.

Jesse

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On 1/16/2002 at 11:17pm, Ron Edwards wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Wowsers,

Marco, you're absolutely right. I unjustly mistook you for saying erroneous stuff, when you were pointing out how erroneous others were for saying it. That must have been very annoying, and I apologize for that.

Whew!

Best,
Ron

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On 1/17/2002 at 4:17am, Paganini wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Ron Edwards wrote:
More generally, I should also like to point out that the definition of Narrativism says nothing about foreshadowing, symbolism, or other (often bogus) memorized items from Lit 101. Narrativism relies on (1) a Premise that intrigues the actual humans (because it involves problematic human passions that we can understand and ponder), and (2) addressing it as authors through the actual process of role-playing fictional protagonists' actions. That, and that alone, is the "traditional literary structure" people sometimes refer to.


I have a related question here. It seems that you often bring up Premise as though it's a defining aspect of narrative play. Is not Premise applicable to other styles, though? For example, in the Identity Crisis thread I believe someone said that Storyteller is primarily a character simulation system, in spite of a lot of story oriented prose. Isn't it the Premise of the game that keeps people buying it? It seems like the Premise is similar to that of Sorcerer... how far do you go before you lose your humanity.

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On 1/17/2002 at 7:28am, hardcoremoose wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Isn't it the Premise of the game that keeps people buying it? It seems like the Premise is similar to that of Sorcerer... how far do you go before you lose your humanity.


That's what they tell you the Premise is. It's actually something more akin to "What would it be like to be vampires, if vampires had this age old society and secretly ruled the world?"

Okay, I'm being a bit smarmy there. That's actually a totally valid Premise, despite my sarcasm, and I think it does sell books. Premise is that thing that keeps players playing, and if they're playing the game, they're more likely to buy its supplements (although I think there are alot of reasons people buy games, and some of them are pretty superficial).

To answer your question more directly, Premise is extremely important to any branch of the three fold. It's that thing that makes you want to play the game - any game of any type - so it must be crucial to all of them. It gets special attention from the Narrativists, maybe because we lean on it so much, but it's definitely an issue for Gamists and Simulationists as well.

- Scott

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On 1/17/2002 at 8:21am, Gordon C. Landis wrote:
Premise for all

Paganini wrote:
I have a related question here. It seems that you often bring up Premise as though it's a defining aspect of narrative play. Is not Premise applicable to other styles, though?

Not to speak for Ron here, but as I understand it the GNS essay does identify Premise for all styles. Some are far removed from a Narrativist-style premise ("Let's see how well we do against this killer dungeon!"), but others can be quite close. E.g.,
Paganini wrote:
[ . . . ] Storyteller is primarily a character simulation system, in spite of a lot of story oriented prose. Isn't it the Premise of the game that keeps people buying it? It seems like the Premise is similar to that of Sorcerer... how far do you go before you lose your humanity.

"How far do you go before you lose your humaity?" can pretty much identically be the Premise for a pure Simulationist exploration of character/setting/whatever where that's the issue, AND the Premise of a Narrativist in-play created story that resolves/illuminates some aspect of the issue. Hell, you could use it as the foundation of a Gamist, "how far can I push the HumanoMeter?" tactical challenge.

But while something as plain as "what's it like to be a bunny?" could be the Premise of a Simulationist game, it CAN'T be the Premise of a Narrativist one.

So maybe a particular kind of Premise is a defining aspect of Narrative play - but a lot of it is in what you do with the premise.

Gordon

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On 1/17/2002 at 3:09pm, Ron Edwards wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Hey,

I'm puzzled, folks. My use of Premise is fully outlined in the grossly large GNS essay.

Perhaps what's confusing people is the term's multiple, subdivided quality.

Initial premise = individual interest in imagining any or all of Character, Setting, Situation, System, or Color

Premise per se = a shared and compatible version of initial premises among a group

Premise in action = application of the "Premise per se" in actual play, which ipso facto involves some version of GNS goals. Hence, three sets of Premise type to discuss at this level, each with several subdivisions.

Much discussion on the Forge concerns the various versions of Narrativist Premises at this level, because that's what a bunch of us like to use in most of our play. That's an artifact of the demographic at the Forge, not an indication that Narrativism has some special claim to the term.

Best,
Ron

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On 1/17/2002 at 3:57pm, Paganini wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Ron Edwards wrote:
I'm puzzled, folks. My use of Premise is fully outlined in the grossly large GNS essay.


Sorry Ron, I should have been more clear. What I meant was, I understood the definition of premise in your grossly large essay :) to be the attention getting elements in the game. Possibly the core or most important elements that the game is designed around. But on these forums a lot of times it seems as though you're applying Premise as something that is exclusively narrativist. So I was just wanting a bit of clarification. I think Gordon answered my question.

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On 1/17/2002 at 4:08pm, Ron Edwards wrote:
RE: Narrativism

Paganini,

I'm still puzzled, though. The GNS chapter in the essay is about nothing else besides how Premise must be focused into local forms in order to be functional in play at all. You refer to the definition in the early part of the essay, but seem to have missed the idea that the definition's further specifications or applications are what role-playing is all about.

Nearly any discussion of Premise in an applied way is going to have to be dealing with one of the local forms, rather than the most general version of the term. Thus the various discussions of Narrativist Premises (or any other kind) will not correspond with the general definition alone, but with its application into Narrativist play (or any other kind).

This is not a contradiction between the general and local terms, but a rather elementary outcome of what they are.

Best,
Ron

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On 1/17/2002 at 7:36pm, Gordon C. Landis wrote:
For what it's worth

Paganini wrote:
But on these forums a lot of times it seems as though you're applying Premise as something that is exclusively narrativist.

And then,
Ron Edwards wrote:
This is not a contradiction between the general and local terms, but a rather elementary outcome of what they are.

Seems to me like Paganini was running into a contradiction not in the general and local terms in the essay, but between the essay and demographic effect of Narrativist's on the Forge who talk about the "localization" of Premise in Narrativist terms.

As Ron says, the localization of Premise to any game is a "elementary outcome". There's just been a lot of talk about how to localize a Premise for Narrativism, and not much about other localizations.

Gordon

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