I recently got Sex and Sorcery, and I was reading through it, when one of the examples struck me in an odd way, and so I thought I would talk about it.

The example I'm talking about was where a character chose to commit a murder-suicide by killing himself and his pleasure slave, by impaling them both on his sword.

The first time I read through it, my reactions were roughly:
'That is a pretty intense game'
'Ah - so that's why they've got that picture there'
'Wait a sec - there's no way he could have positioned the sword like that - his arms would be too short to reach the handle if he wasn't already impaled'
'Come to think of it, while you can stab yourself with a sword, if there's another person between you and the blade, there's pretty much no way you could get a sword which is both short enough that you can can hold the handle while the tip is pointed at your lover's back, and long enough that it can stick through you as well'

So this sounds to me like a simulationist/narrativist clash. But is it really necessary? Almost as soon as I thought of that, I thought of a few alternative methods - he could strike her head off, and then commit hari-kari on himself, or if simultaneous death is important you could kill 2 people easily with 1 gunshot. Just now I thought of a third way - you can easily slit 2 throats (or wrists) with 1 sword cut.

So I have a couple of questions.
* This one is primarily for Ron Edwards, as he's the only one who can tell us what was going on in that game. If I had chimed in when your character was doing that and said 'wait, he couldn't really do that - he could slit both their throats, but blade is too long for him to be able to stab them both at the same time' would that have been acceptable, or was there something about the situation that required that he commit suicide by that method? How annoyed would you have been by my interruption?
* Is this really a simulationist/narrativist conflict? Those are the concerns being addressed, but it seems like it's so easy to resolve that I wonder if what I'm talking about here isn't simulationism but color.
* More generally I'm curious if someone could give me their example of a simulationist/narrativist conflict?
* I've been told I have simulationist tendencies, but that seems weird to me, because for me these types of issues don't really reflect my goals as a player, but ignoring them will reduce my enjoyment of the game. Is simulationism primarily a reactive agenda, and not an active one?

(Just as I finished typing this up, I finally realized how you could achieve that kind of strike (You hold the blade vertically above her head with the tip pointed at the center of her back - the tip of the blade will follow a curved path as it travels through her body, but that's fine). So the specific issue that motived me to post this is really a non-issue. Still, I'm going to post it anyway, because I'm interested in the answers to those questions. For the purposes of the questions, please assume that the proposed method of suicide really is implausible :)

I think you might like reading this earlier thread about character integrity and narrativism which gets at the idea of addressing premise in concert with "that wouldn't really happen!"

I do not believe that a cohesive case can be made for that being a Sim-Nar clash. The way I see it is this:

1. Nar play is one where a siginificant portion of the enjoyment/social reinforcement of the session results from address of premise.
2. Sim play is one where a significant portion of the enjoyment/social reinforcement of the session results from adherence to some point (or ideal or model or something not preimsy).

Having a problem with something you think is unrealistic is, IMO, not represented on that axis. Sure: a 'sim player' might voice that complaint if the 'point' was some kind of 'realism.'

However as has been pointed out elsewhere, the requirement for a feasible imaginary-space doesn't preclude address of premise. If your primary enjoyment from gaming was the address of premise then it just makes you a pickier Narrativist.

-Marco

Hiya,

Marco's nailed it. Just doesn't really apply.

As for the specifics of the situation, the character simply impaled the two of them at once, in exactly the way you are stating he couldn't. I suggest that this is a Color issue and may be dealt with in several ways.

1. Q: How long and wide is Batman's cape? A: As long/wide as it needs to be scary and as short/narrow as it needs not to interfere with the acrobatic stuff he's doing. In other words, Mr. artist, draw it right per panel and don't fuck it up with questions like this.

This answer relies on Color in terms of emotional and symbolic impact alone.

2. Q: How could he? A: Coulda! More specifically, in this case, no one said he had to be holding the sword by the hilt initially, but rather he "coulda!" been holding it by the blade at first, near the hilt.

This answer relies on Color in terms of plausibility. (Yes, I think many questions of plausibility are Color alone, although not all.)

Best,
Ron

Thanks for the quick replies :)

So what I was experiencing when I went through that was a Color conflict which didn't have anything to do with narrativism/simulationism, and would be addressed in game with an explanation of why the situation didn't violate the versimillitude of the setting, either because the setting has some unrealistic elements (Batman's cape) or because my objection is flawed in some way (as was actually the case ).

Steve