John Kim and I (and several others) drifted into this discussion over in Plot is the Wake of the Characters' Desires:

John Kim wrote:

M. J. Young wrote: But looking at it again, it strikes me that the villains are also reactive, as much as I am. The difference isn't whether we're proactive or reactive; the difference is to what we are reacting.

The choices are whether we're reacting to the way the world currently is or reacting to a change someone attempts to make in the world. That's not really all that useful a distinction. If I'm a hero in that setting, then I react to attempts to change the world for what I see as the worse. But if I were a villain, I would be reacting to what I see as the unacceptable nature of the world. Were we to turn the world on its head, Robin Hood is reacting to the unacceptable nature of the world as it is and the Sheriff of Nottingham is reacting to Robin's efforts to change it. Similarly, the Rebellion is reacting to the unacceptable nature of the universe as it is and the Emperor and Vader and the Empire are reacting to the Rebellion's efforts to change it.

Thus the proactive/reactive dichotomy fails. It becomes nothing other than whether that which is unacceptable is the nature of the world as it is or the changes someone else is trying to make within it.

Sorry, John

Um, M.J.? You say, "sorry" and that it "fails" as if you think you're disagreeing. I completely agree with you. In fact, this is exactly the topic which is central to my essay. What you call the "universe as it is" is what I refer to as the "status quo". So as far as I can see you're agreeing with me. i.e. Proactive and reactive mean nothing more (and nothing less) than relation to the status quo. Proactive are those who oppose the status quo and will act to change. Reactive are those who uphold it.

I think this is a useful distinction for gaming. For example, proactive characters don't need an "adventure" in the sense of an external hook or prod which goads them into action. Instead, the GM can describe the normal setting and have the PCs create the adventure by their actions upon it. Now, you can shift the terms and say that the PCs are just reacting to the world as it is. But the distinction is still there -- you're just arguing over what the word for it should be.

John Kim wrote: I think this is a useful distinction for gaming. For example, proactive characters don't need an "adventure" in the sense of an external hook or prod which goads them into action. Instead, the GM can describe the normal setting and have the PCs create the adventure by their actions upon it. Now, you can shift the terms and say that the PCs are just reacting to the world as it is. But the distinction is still there -- you're just arguing over what the word for it should be.

M.J. wrote: Looked at another way, it would seem that when the Emperor was gaining power in the very first minutes of Star Wars (the original), Princess Leia was defending the status quo; as soon as the Emperor took control by disbanding the senate, she was attacking the status quo. She wasn't doing anything different, and her motivation didn't change. Yet by the proactive/reactive dichotomy, when she was defending the last shreds of the Republic, she was reactive, and when the Republic was finally swept away and replaced by the Empire she was proactive. In both cases she was responding to the way things were which she found unacceptable, whether it was the way they were changing or what they had become.

A few references: this is split from the thread M.J. mentioned, but is about concepts discussed in my essay Proactive PCs and Related Issues.

M. J. Young wrote: The problem is that this may work in defining real people, but it doesn't work in defining characters. The "status quo" doesn't really exist in a fictional setting; all that exists is the background created by one of the participants.
...
I agree that it's useful to recognize whether a specific character is the sort who is going to do something wherever he goes versus the sort for which you have to stimulate something that will force him to become involved. I don't see that as a different kind of motivation, though.

M. J. Young wrote:

John Kim wrote: I think this is a useful distinction for gaming. For example, proactive characters don't need an "adventure" in the sense of an external hook or prod which goads them into action. Instead, the GM can describe the normal setting and have the PCs create the adventure by their actions upon it. Now, you can shift the terms and say that the PCs are just reacting to the world as it is. But the distinction is still there -- you're just arguing over what the word for it should be.

The proactive/reactive distinction would seem on the surface to be between the person who wants to change things and the person who wants to prevent things from changing. This, though, assumes that things are static. To say that I act because I object to the change that is happening rather than that I act because I want things to be different comes down to a difference between wanting them to be different from the way they are versus wanting them to be different from the way they are becoming--in both cases I am reacting to the world.

M. J. Young wrote: Looked at another way, it would seem that when the Emperor was gaining power in the very first minutes of Star Wars (the original), Princess Leia was defending the status quo; as soon as the Emperor took control by disbanding the senate, she was attacking the status quo. She wasn't doing anything different, and her motivation didn't change. Yet by the proactive/reactive dichotomy, when she was defending the last shreds of the Republic, she was reactive, and when the Republic was finally swept away and replaced by the Empire she was proactive. In both cases she was responding to the way things were which she found unacceptable, whether it was the way they were changing or what they had become.

Questions:
If I have something on my character sheet that drives my character to action (i.e. needs to rule the world), then he is proactive?
If something in the setting drives my character to action (i.e. the new Death Star), then he is reactive?

I'm I understanding this correctly?

Cheers
Jonathan

ErrathofKosh wrote: If I have something on my character sheet that drives my character to action (i.e. needs to rule the world), then he is proactive? If something in the setting drives my character to action (i.e. the new Death Star), then he is reactive?

I'm I understanding this correctly?

I see the proactive/reactive distinction, and I actually do like it; it probably does have value in a general sense. I've certainly had to deal with players who wouldn't do anything until prodded, as well as players who were always actively doing things, and from a referee's perspective they're entirely different things.

However, I still have trouble with the distinction as it refers to the characters.

It seems to me that all character action, and thus all player input, is ultimately based on the referee through his input as the world and non-player characters within it is doing things that our characters don't like, and so they will act to oppose these things. At that level, I have trouble distinguishing between what the referee is doing as the ongoing background of the world and what he is doing as a change in the ongoing background of the world. Either way, the player is reacting to what the referee presents, whether that is presented as "the way things are" or as "the change that is threatened".

We could create a background that said "for thousands of years this is how the world was, but moments before you were born that all changed, and now it's like this." To your father, trying to restore the old ways is reactive; to you, it's proactive? In either case, those thousands of years didn't really exist--they're only said to have existed as part of the backstory. That they "changed" just now means nothing but that we could be justified in opposing the change (making us reactive). If instead it had always been the way it is now but we want it to be this other way that's different, doing the same thing would be proactive--not because there's any difference at all in what we're doing or indeed to that to which we are responding, but because our backstory which was never played out tells us whether this is something we're trying to change or something we're trying to preserve.

Altogether, play comes down to "the referee says X is happening in the world, and the player decides he wants Y, so he opposes X". Whether "X" is the way things have always been or the change that is occurring now doesn't change this equation at all.

You could argue that when a character is proactive, it's because the world and he are designed initially as being at odds such that he will want to change it immediately, whereas if he's reactive it's because the world and he are not at odds until the referee makes the decision to change the world; but in either case, the player is responding to that which the referee presents as the current state of the world, affected only by when it became the current state of the world.

John says Leia is reactive throughout Star Wars, as she is reacting to the consolidation of the Empire's power in the Death Star. This, though, would be different if the Death Star and the Empire had existed since before her birth and her efforts are to create a new Republic like the one she never knew (which from the prequels may actually be the case). Instead of accepting the Empire as the way things are, she's trying to change it to something she prefers--proactive. So the argument can be made either way.

It's all give and take between referee and players. Some players are more likely to "make the first move" and others are more likely to "wait for the referee's move", and that's a useful distinction. However, characters are always responding to what the referee has done, whether it's what he did in establishing the world or what he does within it at this moment.

My head's a bit foggy tonight; I hope this is clear. Thanks for reading.

--M. J. Young

I think proactive/reactive should be more of a relationship characters have to the plot/exploration in the GAME than it is one they have to the GAME-WORLD.
A proactive character is one whose motivations, by themselves (without the need for a catalyst provided by the refereee, player or other players), drive the plot of the game. A reactive character is one whose motivations do not of themselves provide a plot for the game, and need additional spurs to action before they become a part of a satisfying plot. Thus, whether a character is proactive or not depends to some extent on what kind of plot the players are willing to spend time on.

For example, I was recently playing a game where most of the characters were frontiersmen-types. Left to ourselves, our group decided to go hunt a bear, because a bearskin would be useful. That was character initiated action; the group decided to do this based not on any kind of meta-reasoning, but on what our characters would most likely do. Since the bear-hunt was played out for a whole session, I would say that for that session we were playing proactively. If we as a group had decided that that was enough plot for us, and the next session had gone fishing, and then repaired our huts, and hoarded food for winter, etc., then I would say we were in a proactive campaign.
On the other hand, if the referee had glided past the bear hunt, saying, ``You caught a
medium-sized bear and have a bearskin. Then a mysterious stranger appears on the road,", then the session would not have been proactive, since the bear-hunt wouldn't have been explored. After the bear-hunt, the referee did in fact introduce a mysterious stranger, and from then on we played reactively. Note that in the game-world, there would have been no difference between these two situations. A bear is hunted, and a mysterious stranger appears. It is only because we decided that the bear-hunt was part of the plot that we were at all being proactive.

Characters that challenge the game-world status quo in a significant way are more likely to be proactive, but I don't think I agree with John that the two are synonymous (if that is what he is saying.) For example, in a campaign, there was a war between the ``Good''
army and the ``Evil'' army, with one city being neutral territory. I played Orfluven, the representative of a neutral tribe of barbarians sent to seek war reparations from the Evil army for damage done to a village ``mistakenly'' raided by the Evil army. When the game started, in parallel with reactive adventures, Orfluven sought out an audience with the Evil army captain, got one, and when his demand was rejected, warned the captain that this meant a blood feud. This drove the plot of the game for a fair fraction of the time we spent playing. In game-world terms, Orfluven was reacting to the Evil army raid, and he was working to restore the status quo. In game terms, it felt like the character was creating plot, since the raid took place off-stage, whereas Orfluven's response to it was played out and altered the situation for our characters.

(Not a lot to say here, but maybe that's a good thing . . .)

I'm with M.J. on the "applies to players rather than characters", or at least I'd say it applies BETTER to players than to characters.

I also find that reactive/proactive works much better when it is in relation to a particular thing, rather than a blanket absolute. As in, proactive regarding guard duty. Reactive regarding mission selection. Etc.

Gordon