Topic: Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
Started by: John Kim
Started on: 2/6/2005
Board: Push Editorial Board
On 2/6/2005 at 8:59pm, John Kim wrote:
Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
Hi,
So unfortunately PUSH dropped off my radar months ago, and I lost track. However, I am interested in contributing again and I'll try to keep up on the forum. So here's a draft contribution for it. I was originally thinking of this for the Knutepunkt 2005 book, but it was too focused on tabletop play rather than LARP so I ended up writing something rather different.
To get a little better formatting, the draft is also on the web (for the moment) at
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/narrative/immersivemethods-tt.html
I'd be interested in comments or suggestions.
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Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
The problem of how to prepare for games, whether as a tabletop GM or live-action organizer, is well-known. As a tabletop GM, once the players get a hold of your material, they go in totally unexpected directions and may invalidate much of the preparation which you have put into the game. The GM is left floundering. (See Green 2003 as an example.) Here I outline some ideas for preparation which are based on my concept of "Immersive Story" (Kim 2004). I outlined some similar ideas on the Forge (Kim 2003). In brief, that analogy suggests that each player sees the game as a dramatic story with her own PC as the protagonist. This includes all events seen, including those of other PCs.
In this essay, I want see how this theory implies suggestions for game preparation and structure. I will draw some examples from a tabletop campaign which I GMed, the Water-Uphill World campaign. In that game, the PCs were schoolchildren from the modern world who find themselves in a bizarre fantasy world where water literally runs uphill. The world is rocky and has scattered "geysers" where water falls in jets up into the sky. There were four kids: Noriko, Kate, Martin, and Steve. They were wandering in the basement under their school, and then inexplicably found themselves in a tower of the Royal Palace. The Palace was a floating island -- a huge upside-down bowl of rock with a reservoir of water underneath holding it up. I will describe more of the campaign as I consider different parts of preparation. As a side note, these suggestions and examples are drawn mainly by my experience of tabletop play, but principles should be applicable to larp with modification.
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Story Soup
Immersive story is inherently chaotic, because the same event will at once have different dramatic functions in different stories. One analogy for this approach to play is making a soup or stew. Rather than trying to arrange ingredients in some sort of structured narrative, you as GM toss them all into the pot and see what comes out. The dramatic direction should not come from what the situation is, but rather from the PCs. In this approach, the GM is responsible for the balance of ingredients, and occaisionally stirring the pot, not how it is arranged.
Note that because each scene is interpreted simultaneously by all players, any formal structure is nearly impossible. By contrast, another tabletop approach to rpg narrative suggests that each PC has their own story which play alternates between. However, this means that the player is spending the majority of time watching stories external to her PC. Immersive story seeks to arrange action so that what is foreground to one PC is supporting background to another.
In this model, the GM does not prepare for particular storylines. Given the chaotic model suggested, that is unworkable. However, he should pay attention to the mix of ingredients going in, as well as the boundaries of play. Once things start, he should not be responsible for pacing of the game.
Note that I am emphasizing the role of the GM or organizer. However, players can be involved in the design of all the background elements. Play in this style is powered by interactions and developments, not revelation of secrets. So even if the players know and/or designed the elements, they can still be engaged by interaction with them. In Water-Uphill World, Liz (who played Kate) was involved in the world design.
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Scope
The first key is defining a Scope. This is the boundary line of the stew pot -- the set of locations and characters and objects which the GM has prepared. The scope needs to be small enough that the GM can have it adequately detailed, while still large enough to be interesting. It could be a limited physical location: such as the home town of the PCs, their covenant and its surroundings (in Ars Magica). It could also be conceptual boundaries rather than physical boundaries. For example, the scope could be everthing related to a set of particular characters, like an extended family. Or it could be a set of things all related to some unusual feature or event in history. With conceptual boundaries, you need to be able to improvise setting details.
In general, it is considerably easier to design from a modern-day, historical, or alternate-history setting -- as opposed to a fantasy or futuristic setting. Such settings not only have a lot of material readily available for them, they are also more familiar to the players as well. This is particularly important for complex details like culture and religion.
By keeping the game within the scope, the relations become deeper and more meaningful. A limited scope means that the games will tend to be more static in location, rather than adventurers constantly wandering. This approach does not work well with adventurers-for-hire who are likely to wander off to the next country if profits are poor. You need to design in strong reasons which keep the PCs interest within the scope. For example, you might have a campaign based around two warring cities. You need to detail the two cities, focusing on their military capabilities.
In Water-Uphill World, the scope of the game, at least initially, was the Palace. It was a big place with over a dozen buildings and lots of factions. As a floating island, though, the PCs had no immediate means to leave it, which inherently prevented the scope from creeping too much. After six or seven sessions, the PCs left and went to an underground city. I tried to detail that as well, but it was more sketchy in the end.
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Factions
I generally divide the scope into Factions -- these can be formal organizations, clans, or just ideological groupings. The factions might be as simple as the two opposings sides in a war. There should probably be at least four factions, but no more than ten. These may include sub-groupings within a larger unit (like vying political blocks within one side of a war). Factions are necessary because if you are going to keep a handle on ongoing events, you need to have some abstraction larger than individual characters. You need to be able to generalize with things like "This PC action will piss off members of Faction X", rather than relating to each individual NPC.
You should be careful about developing individual characters within the factions, though. Characters in practice often take on a life of their own, especially as they are influenced by the surrounding players. It is more stable to prepare in advance the broad tendencies and relations of the factions, and fill in more details about the individuals only once they have entered play. By having the framework, it becomes easier to write up individuals. So when I write up an individual NPC, I am not just creating out of nothing. I am creating them within the known framework of relationships. This tends to give the NPCs a sense of grounding in the fictional reality -- i.e. they are not created to be opponents or allies to the PCs. Instead, they are created based on "What would the second-in-command of X faction have to be like?"
You should make sure that the factional conflicts run deep and yet are difficult to resolve. Often, this means coming up with reasons to restrict open killing. Basically, you don't want a little push to bring the conflict to armed battle which results in the immediate elimination or subjugation of one side. Important conflicts should be more long-term than that. This also gives some stability to both PCs and NPCs. The PCs as a whole should not constantly be in danger of dying. Similarly, important NPCs should not frequently be killed off. Such characters are difficult and time-consuming to develop. They should die under the right circumstances, but the context should be designed to make it less likely. Stabilizing forces can also mitigate the effect of a "loose cannon" among the PCs.
There is a balance between the setup being too rigid and too unstable. If there is too much stability, then the PCs will be unable to effect change, which can be frustrating. On the other hand, if it is too unstable then you may have a bunch of carefully prepared characters quickly killed off, or scattered to different parts of the world. In short, your preparation becomes quickly invalidated.
In the Palace of Water-Uphill World, there were four major factions and three powerful independent individuals. These were the Regent, the Duke, the Nursery, and (not important politically but important for Palace life) the servants and artisans. The independent individuals were the princess, an unusual warrior, and a giant spider.
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The Player Characters
The PCs, then, are created by the players and set loose within this scope to interact. The PCs are by far the most important ingredient. Each other PC is generally far more prominent to a player than any tabletop NPC or short-term character. There are a few things to consider for this. The PCs should be powerful relative to the scope. As a rule of thumb, at least one PC should probably be on the top ten list of most powerful individuals in the scope; and the PCs should be a major concern for the most powerful. The PCs may or may not be an integrated part of the Scope -- i.e. they might fit within the existing factions, or they might be external to them. If they do not start out part of the factions, however, they should develop relations. The factions should eventually seek alliances or make enemies of them.
You should collectively design the PCs to have an overall bond which keeps them together. Given the chaotic approach, it is important to have ties which are difficult to break -- i.e. more than simple friendship or common interest. Relationships can and should take unexpected turns in play. You might intend during design that two PCs are friends, but they soon have a terrible rift over some incident. Particularly in pre-modern societies, I am fond of using blood relations. Friends can split, but a brother is always a brother even if you don't like him. Another bond could be that the PCs are all officers assigned to a particular ship. In Water-Uphill World, the PCs were the only people they knew from their world, which forced them to depend on each other.
For individual PCs, the most important issue is that they be proactive. This involves attitude of both the players and the PCs. Good PCs should have ambition. This need not be selfish ambition -- it could be ambition for a cause. However, what this amounts to is an unwillingness to settle for the status quo. (Kim 2004)
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Relationship Charts
Given a set of individual PCs, the most vital part is the relationships among the PCs. However, the relationships in practice are outside of the GM's control. The GM can plan and suggest relationships, but the results from play can and will vary from this. One tool for charting out the relationships is to create a chart. The idea of the chart is that it cross-indexes characters, so if there are 8 characters it is 8 x 8 for 64 boxes. Each row represents a character, and specifically that character's story. Each column represents a supporting character in that story -- i.e. one of the other PCs. What is being documented here is what potential impact the column character has on the row character's story.
So, for Water-Uphill World, we might have:
_______________________________________________________________________________
| | Supporting Cast
Protagonist| Story |--------------------------------------------------
| | Noriko | Kate | Martin | Steve
___________|________________|____________|_____________|_______________|_______
Noriko | taking | X | impractical | irresponsible |
| responsibility | | bookworm | adventurer |
___________|________________|____________|_____________|_______________|_______
Kate | learning an | irritating | X | |
| adult world | | | |
___________|________________|____________|_____________|_______________|_______
Martin | finding | lacks | fellow | X |
| passion | vision | explorer | |
___________|________________|____________|_____________|_______________|_______
Steve | getting | goody | | | X
| power | two-shoes | | |
___________|________________|____________|_____________|_______________|_______
Now, the important part for me was filling in the blank spots. The ideal here would be that each PC has an important supporting role in each story (except, of course, his own). But this isn't an exact guide. All the stories and roles going on are bound to clash with each other -- so you're just trying to maximize your chances rather than nailing each one.
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Externalization & Symbolism
One criticism of immersive story is that without clear cues from traditional single-protagonist story structure, the players' attention can become lost in minutiae. The multiplicity of conflicts and themes can be overwhelming. To offset this, you can try to build in clarifying elements -- symbols which externalize the conflicts which are in place. In keeping with the principles of the style, a symbol should be:
• Intra-diagetic. The object needs to speak for itself, not be the result of external description or emphasis.
• Discrete. The symbol should not be construed as leading in a particular direction, or requiring a particular arrangement to look right.
The point here is that symbols should not be guides. They are directionless, part of the soup which the players manipulate. When the players pick a direction, they take on new meaning by proxy.
Within Water-Uphill World, Magic served this function. I had conceived of Magic as a place. The PCs would concentrate deeply, and then find themselves in a maze where there were certain unusual objects that they could carry. Each unusual object represented a magical power which the character would have in the normal world. So, for example, Kate in Magic found that she had a bag which contained things which she touched in the real world and came to Magic with. This was a sort of eidetic memory. At any time she could go to Magic and read a book which she touched.
The maze started in the middle of a four-way intersection. Secretly, I had determined that each direction was a branch of Magic. Magic was divided by social types rather than physical. I had a four-way branching corridor. There were four signs, but rather than labelling the four directions, each sign was exactly in-between two directions. The signs were:
| |
(A) | | (B)
______/ \______
______ ______
\ /
(D) | | (C)
| |
A) "This way to higher understanding."
B) "This way to ultimate dominion."
C) "This way to your heart's desire."
D) "This way to fulfillment."
So the AB corridor represented political or social power. The BC corridor represented material wealth. The CD corridor represented love. And the DA corridor represented knowledge. In principle, along each branch of the maze, they had opportunities to get more objects, but also to lose or trade objects they had.
In practice, all four of the kids were most interested in the knowledge direction at first. In short, they were curious rather than greedy. In that direction, there was a dead end with a hole in the wall, which gave a periodic grinding sound (about every 1.5 seconds). There were no clues here -- whoever comes seeking must put their hand inside the hole to go further. The wall turns once a hand is placed in, letting them into the room beyond where further puzzles awaited.
One of the most interesting twists of the game, though, was when Noriko went down the AB path. That had a clear explanation of what it was. The hall ended in a stone door, beside which was an alcove where an iron rod stood on a pedestal. A sign beside it explained:
This is the First Rod of Power, which conveys to the wielder authority in arguments. With it, when you pressure them, others are influenced to concede to your arguments not only on the surface, but in their true belief. It will also open this door. However, once grasped it may never be put down. <br> As it is magical, it will not encumber you physically outside of this place. However, its power will be felt and can never be turned off or discarded.The symbolism for political power should be fairly clear. But I had not arranged at all how or even if this would work into the plot. It was just an inherent power. During the campaign, Noriko was at first a constant voice of caution to the others. At some point, when the others had split up, she impulsively went into Magic and picked up the rod. She would use it on others to protect the group. However, from that point on, she would never speak when the others discussed what they wanted to do, since she didn't want to use the power on her friends.
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The Game in Play
How the game should be run goes beyond the scope of this essay, and has equally enormous variation. There are a few principles which I should mentions. The GM should provide starting motivations or motivating events for the PCs. However, the intent is that the preparation should be flexible enough to work even if those initial goals change. i.e. You are not preparing for particular plotlines, but rather have a collection of elements which can be used for a variety of plots. In principle, the game can be started by a push, but over time the players and their interactions should generate continuing action.
There will still be times where the action is slow. These are often useful and good. The players should drive the action, which means that at times they should be able to sit back. Particularly for a tabletop game, it is useful to be able to fast-forward in time. The GM should be able to project future developments which come as consequence of prior play. So, for example, after the PCs inform one faction of a secret, you might fast-forward to a point where the consequences of that occur. The abstraction of factions is important here. Simply consider what would happen with each group.
One should be wary of adding results or encounters based on drama. It is possible to inject interest by having well-timed or unexpectedly exciting outcomes. However, over time this creates a visible pattern of having exciting parts which result from the resolution rather than from the choices. The result of this is that the players will often look at events and encounters as things which the GM feels are "supposed to" happen -- and indeed they are right. Within story soup play, the patterns should arise from PC choices -- not from GM-planned accidental encounters and resolution.
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Conclusion
Role-play has often been characterized as having a contrast between story and location. Story is thought of as requiring pre-planning of the plot, themes, or issues. This outlines suggestions about how to create a crucible for the creation of story without pre-planning. The chaotic results are unlikely to look like a structured literary story, but will have depth of meaning for each of the players.
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References
• Chinn, Chris (2003): RPGnet column. "Ways to Play" <tt>www.rpg.net/news+reviews/collists/waystoplay.html</tt>.
• Edwards, Ron (2001): "GNS and Other Matters of Role-playing Theory", <tt>www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/1/</tt> ().
• Green, Mark. (2003): Post on the Forge. "A demoralising day" <tt>www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6166</tt> (April 22, 2003)
• Kim, John H. (2003): Post on the Forge. "Plotless but Background-based Games" <tt>www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6178</tt> (April 22, 2003)
• Kim, John H. (2004): "Immersive Story: A View of Role-played Drama" in Beyond Role and Play.
• Kim, John H. (2004): "Proactive Player Characters and Related Issues" <tt>www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/plot/proactivity.html</tt> (July 17, 2004).
Forge Reference Links:
Topic 6166
Topic 6178
On 2/7/2005 at 3:17am, LordSmerf wrote:
RE: Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
John,
Excellent article. I have three comments:
• "Factions" section, third paragraph: "You should make sure that the factional conflicts run deep and yet are difficult to resolve." - remove "yet", deep running conflicts are rarely easy to resolve.• "The Game in Play" section, first sentence is not entirely clear, specifically: "...has equally enormous variation." I don't remember serious discussion of variation in the preceding secition which this seems to be referencing.• "The Game in Play" section, third paragraph, the entire thing is unclear to me; specifically, I believe I am not understanding what you mean by "unexpected resolution", I think I understand what you're getting at, but that specifically is unclear to me.
The rest of the article is clear to me, and concise and well-written.
Thomas
On 2/7/2005 at 1:20pm, Eero Tuovinen wrote:
Re: Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
So, I'll try to keep my promise of active commentary, firing up writers like never before! Gambatte!
Overall the text is excellent, but I'd like to see a deeper theoretical grounding, as well as introductory stuff for those outside the style in question. The text would work as is for larpers or such, because they've necessarily already bought the basic assumptions here. For theory people you'll have to give more backgrounds.
John Kim wrote:
Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
I suggest that you should start the essay with a clear, top-down definition of the type of play you're dealing with in the article. This will save the reader much bother, when there's no need to try to decipher your agenda from the text. I know that you're talking about a particular kind of simulationistic play, well documented in your Forge writings, but the readers won't know that. They won't even necessarily be familiar with Forge terminology, so you should concretely define what kind of play this is for, and what kind of play doesn't concern the text. Doing otherwise will result in readers who try to apply the advice to their own games, and fail because they're not playing in your style.
The problem of how to prepare for games, whether as a tabletop GM or live-action organizer, is well-known. As a tabletop GM, once the players get a hold of your material, they go in totally unexpected directions and may invalidate much of the preparation which you have put into the game. The GM is left floundering.
This is a good example of the above. A person familiar with the current discussion can read the implied assumptions for what they are, while the text is left completely opaque for others. Some people play in styles for which "the players going in unexpected directions" is completely irrelevant, for instance.
Story Soup
This is good stuff. Just give a thorough grounding for the issue before explaining this model of drama, and you're good.
Scope
Before this part, explain to the reader why your style needs those detailed preparations. I like the concept of scope, but you've left out any reasons for having detailed preparation in the first place. Again this is something an experienced reader can guess at (something to do with emergent drama theory, I guess), but you should really spell it out for others.
By keeping the game within the scope, the relations become deeper and more meaningful.
This is the only sentence in the section to hint at a reason for having a scope and the accompanying preparations.
Factions
Lots of useful concepts, like the rigidity/unstability thing. Perhaps some stuff about the meaning of death and violence as dramatic memes could deepen this part. You mention a couple of "should" maxims on that topic, but there's interesting detail there, too.
The Player Characters
It strikes me reading this part that you're not really talking about relative power, but relative dramatic importance. The text reads somewhat like it were directed at WW storytellers - comparisons of power (apparently power to restrain and wound others) and dividing stuff into factions. Consider recasting the stuff in a more general light: for example, what is "power" in a Jane Austen -type dramatic scope? It's not really about power (in the sense roleplayers understand it, at least), it's about position and means to affect the hanging questions.
Also, there is more stuff with only partial grounding here. You say that the PCs should have strong bonds. The text will become better if you spell out the consequences of not having such. It will be even better if you can give an analytic reason for why such a law holds - what causes it that this kind of gaming method has this requirement of bonds?
The above holds over the whole text. I'd like to see more consideration for consequences of not going with this advice, and the theoretical causes of the forces at work.
Relationship Charts
Interesting. But check out that first sentence: "Given a set of individual PCs, the most vital part is the relationships among the PCs." That's another example of weighty, interesting advice with not much grounding. Why is this so? In my games, I could say here, it's virtually impossible to create any supporting roles for characters in each other's story. The players frequently address the Setting and Situation, and almost never care about each other's characters.
Externalization & Symbolism
While your example is fascinating, I'm not sure if it illustrates the question at hand. Symbolism as a method of information structure is an interesting question, but perhaps you should dwelve into it in more detail? Cut the example and go for the theory, in other words. The example's point is more in how players address premise in an immersive environment, I would think. That symbology is there is incidental, especially as magic as a concept is suspect whenever symbolism is concerned - I don't know if you're familiar with the principle, but magic can be defined as the ultimate idea of symbol-destruction: magic is the act of taking a symbol and making it concrete, thus removing it's function as a symbol. The rod of power with actual power is no more a symbol for power, but it is power itself.
So consider going into this in much more detail. This could be a central point in getting the style to work.
The Game in Play
I'd be interested in some drawing of boundaries between this immersive narrativism you describe and the currently more usual (in discussion, at least) formalistic kind. Consider discussing the differences and strengths of each.
The time-management advice is interesting, but feels perhaps somewhat out of place in an otherwise general article. Also, there's all kinds of classical problems in that issue, which tend to make such advice useless - it's well and good to suggest fast-forwarding, but what about when the players are on different time-scales? Such practicalities are classical problems of immersionist play, and I'm not so sure if this is the right article to even hint at them.
Conclusion
A nice conclusion. It would be strenghtened if the article emphasized the theoretical role of the location - or better call it the Scope, to differentiate with an actual in-game location. Tell more about how the Scope is best limited, how it can be expanded during the game, when it should not be expanded, how to negotiate liminal conditions (that is, players acting on the borders of the Scope), what kind of Scope works best for different genre agendas, and so on. Make it a comprehensive look at the concept and it's inner workings.
I want to emphasize that the article is great, it inspires me to try that kind of immersionism once again. As it currently stands, it's just more suitable for a traditional games magazine than a journal with academic pretensions. A rewrite could make it an authoritative look at the first genuine immersionist method. Lord knows that the Nordics have miserably failed in writing down descriptive theory for their methods.
Incidentally, I've myself designed a game that works along these exact lines. You can believe I was surprised when I realized that my game was narrativist-immersionist, I had always thought that immersionism happens only in sim. So I know how fun they can be, and how much potential there is for consicious game design in that direction. Usually immersionistic play is relegated to the gutter by it's actual proponents, with strong convinction against game design and theory limiting the possibilities. There's much good in this article from that point of view.
On 2/8/2005 at 9:16am, John Kim wrote:
RE: Re: Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
Eero Tuovinen wrote: Overall the text is excellent, but I'd like to see a deeper theoretical grounding, as well as introductory stuff for those outside the style in question. The text would work as is for larpers or such, because they've necessarily already bought the basic assumptions here. For theory people you'll have to give more backgrounds.
First of all, thanks, and I'm looking through the article again to put in changes to make this clearer. Have you read my article in "Beyond Role And Play" -- i.e. "Immersive Story: A View of Role-played Drama"? I say that because that lays a lot of the theoretical groundwork of this article. Since it is in a different forum, though, I should reiterate some key points from the prior article and also extend them for this one. This was originally intended as a follow-on to that more theoretical article.
Eero Tuovinen wrote:John Kim wrote: The Player Characters
It strikes me reading this part that you're not really talking about relative power, but relative dramatic importance. The text reads somewhat like it were directed at WW storytellers - comparisons of power (apparently power to restrain and wound others) and dividing stuff into factions. Consider recasting the stuff in a more general light: for example, what is "power" in a Jane Austen -type dramatic scope? It's not really about power (in the sense roleplayers understand it, at least), it's about position and means to affect the hanging questions.
Hmm. No, I think of it in terms of power, actually. This is something I should clarify. The method I am describing is for an Immersive Story style. It is possible for disempowered PCs to be dramatically important, but then key decisions are being made outside of their heads. i.e. In a style which emphasizes meta-game manipulation by the players, you can get away with PCs who are not powerful relative to the Scope. The players still get their input via the meta-game decisions.
But here I am trying to work through identification of player to PC, and minimize the meta-game manipulations. Under this approach, a disempowered PC means a disempowered player. Conversely, an empowered PC means an empowered player.
I think something vaguely like Jane Austen can work in this approach, but it will not reproduce the stories themselves. Power in Jane Austen scope is money. The characters are gentlemen and women who manage money, not entrepeneurs or workers. Immersive play of the viewpoint characters of a Jane Austen plot would not work well, because the players are essentially trying to guess how the GM will play his NPCs. However, you can have an interesting game if you take more wealthy characters as your PCs.
Eero Tuovinen wrote: Interesting. But check out that first sentence: "Given a set of individual PCs, the most vital part is the relationships among the PCs." That's another example of weighty, interesting advice with not much grounding. Why is this so? In my games, I could say here, it's virtually impossible to create any supporting roles for characters in each other's story. The players frequently address the Setting and Situation, and almost never care about each other's characters.
OK, I'll work on explanation. But I think I do make clear at the start that I am not outlining a universal framework for all possible RPGs, but rather giving prescriptive suggestions of methods to use for a particular style. There are many games which don't match what I'm describing.
Eero Tuovinen wrote: That symbology is there is incidental, especially as magic as a concept is suspect whenever symbolism is concerned - I don't know if you're familiar with the principle, but magic can be defined as the ultimate idea of symbol-destruction: magic is the act of taking a symbol and making it concrete, thus removing it's function as a symbol. The rod of power with actual power is no more a symbol for power, but it is power itself.
Here I disagree completely. The rod is actual power within the fictional diagesis. But it is symbolic of real political power in the real world. The symbols are not intended as a connection to fictional concepts -- they are connections to the real world of the players.
Eero Tuovinen wrote:The Game in Play
I'd be interested in some drawing of boundaries between this immersive narrativism you describe and the currently more usual (in discussion, at least) formalistic kind. Consider discussing the differences and strengths of each.
I'm not sure that's appropriate for this article. Since I am not targetting a Forge-familiar audience, that means I would have to tackle the big hairy question of what the "usual formalistic kind" of narrativism is. I don't think I can do that in this article. That seems like a whole other article -- i.e. comparing the "immersive story" that I describe here to "formalistic narrativism".
Eero Tuovinen wrote: I want to emphasize that the article is great, it inspires me to try that kind of immersionism once again. As it currently stands, it's just more suitable for a traditional games magazine than a journal with academic pretensions. A rewrite could make it an authoritative look at the first genuine immersionist method. Lord knows that the Nordics have miserably failed in writing down descriptive theory for their methods.
Thanks. I'm working on incorporating your comments, and should have a revised version in a few days.
On 2/8/2005 at 10:38am, Eero Tuovinen wrote:
RE: Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
To reiterate, fully a half of my comments were rooted on the first one:
Eero wrote:
I suggest that you should start the essay with a clear, top-down definition of the type of play you're dealing with in the article. This will save the reader much bother, when there's no need to try to decipher your agenda from the text. I know that you're talking about a particular kind of simulationistic play, well documented in your Forge writings, but the readers won't know that. They won't even necessarily be familiar with Forge terminology, so you should concretely define what kind of play this is for, and what kind of play doesn't concern the text. Doing otherwise will result in readers who try to apply the advice to their own games, and fail because they're not playing in your style.
Despite what you say, the text only hints at this being a particular play style. It does not help the reader to realize the scope of play you're commenting on. Many of my comments were reiterations of this, including the suggestion of bringing formalistic nar play in for comparison. It's important to draw the boundaries, define the scope, of the discussion at hand.
Apart from this simple to fix thing the flaws of the text are negligible.
As for the symbology thing - see, if I don't understand your point, you clearly should write about the matter in more depth...
On 2/9/2005 at 10:04am, Jonathan Walton wrote:
RE: Re: Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
Hey John,
So, I like a lot of what you're saying here, but there are many places where I feel like I don't get it. Here goes:
In the beginning, I feel like you need a bare-bones, straight-up sentence that explains what it is you're doing: "Here are suggestions on how to prepare for a game in which the players have a large say in determining what's important and what narrative threads to explore." That's what I feel like you're basically getting at.
John Kim wrote: In brief, that analogy suggests that each player sees the game as a dramatic story with her own PC as the protagonist. This includes all events seen, including those of other PCs.
And...? I think you need a few sentences here explaining how this effects the game. If everybody sees their own character as the protagonist, what does that do to traditional ideas about protagonism and narrative structure and the like. You're not going to have a traditional story with supporting characters and the like (or you might, but it'd be N different versions of this story from N different perspectives).
Also, I think you need to explain that this "my-PC-as-protag" perspective is basically an ideal of certain kinds of immersionist (and explain what you mean by immersionist) play, and you're not arguing that this applies to all styles of play.
Story Soup
You totally lost me in this section. You talk about it being "chaotic," you talk about "making a soup or stew," you say the GM just needs to "toss ingredients in the pot." But these are all metaphors and I don't get any sense of what you actually mean when you say these things. It sounds good, sure, but what are you referring to?
In this model, the GM does not prepare for particular storylines. Given the chaotic model suggested, that is unworkable. However, he should pay attention to the mix of ingredients going in, as well as the boundaries of play. Once things start, he should not be responsible for pacing of the game.
You're setting up a distinction here between traditional ideas about preparing for a roleplaying session and how you're suggesting one prepare for this style of play. But I don't have a clear since of the distinction you're making. If you said something like, "Often, GM preparations involve responsibilities x, y, z, etc. But in preparing for this style of play, you can ignore x and y, and z takes this new form z1..." I think it would be much clearer. And before you go into Scope, Factions, etc. it would be helpful to have a list of these elements, a checklist of what you need to consider, as if this is the Town Construction guidelines in Dogs or something.
The scope needs to be small enough that the GM can have it adequately detailed, while still large enough to be interesting.
Sentences like this mean absolutely nothing to me, and you've got a fair number of them in the descriptive sections of your essay. What you're saying here is "don't make the scope too big or too small." Er... okay. How do I know when I have a scope that's too big? How do I know if it's too small?
For LARPs and such, Scope would seem to be relative to the number of players coming, the space you have to work with, the number of admins, and similar physical limits. Tabletop is different in that you could potentially be talking about giant imaginary kingdoms and such. I think it's important to talk about this, but, in such general terms, I don't know if the advice you give really means anything.
In general, it is considerably easier to design from a modern-day, historical, or alternate-history setting.
Here, I straight-up disagree. Settings are only "easier" to the extent that they have a lot of material already Frontloaded (Smerf's term) into the players' brains. A historical setting is going to be just as hard as an exotic kingdom if several of the players know nothing about the 18th century or the Roman Empire, or whatever. And generic fantasy settings are pretty damn easy for most roleplayers to get a handle on, because everybody understands how they work.
You should make sure that the factional conflicts run deep and yet are difficult to resolve. Often, this means coming up with reasons to restrict open killing. Basically, you don't want a little push to bring the conflict to armed battle which results in the immediate elimination or subjugation of one side.
See, it seems like most of your examples assume traditional fantasy settings with loads of violence. I don't know if this is based on your imagined audience or what. If the setting was say, in a high school, you don't have to worry about the different Factions killing each other.
Also, I'd like some concrete guidelines or at least more examples of how to set up Factional conflicts that were old and complex. Are we talking about White Wolf style splats here, because that's exactly what this sounds like. "Two houses, both alike in dignity..."
There is a balance between the setup being too rigid and too unstable. If there is too much stability, then the PCs will be unable to effect change, which can be frustrating. On the other hand, if it is too unstable then you may have a bunch of carefully prepared characters quickly killed off, or scattered to different parts of the world. In short, your preparation becomes quickly invalidated.
This is another one of those places where I feel you're speaking so generally that you end up saying nothing at all. Okay, "not too stable, not too unstable." What does that mean? What does that look like in play?
In the Palace of Water-Uphill World, there were four major factions and three powerful independent individuals. These were the Regent, the Duke, the Nursery, and (not important politically but important for Palace life) the servants and artisans. The independent individuals were the princess, an unusual warrior, and a giant spider.
Gimmee the beef! Obviously you developed more than that! You just said that they needed to have complex relationship and such, so tell us about them. How did these factions interact in the game? How did they help you structure things?
The PCs should be powerful relative to the scope.
You're losing me here. What does that mean? It sounds like you're trying to say, "The PCs should be in a position to enact real change, within the scope of the story."
You should collectively design the PCs to have an overall bond which keeps them together.
Okay, I was really, really suprised to see the Party System turn up in a game about immersive play. I mean, geez, this kind of play is totally set-up for inter-character antagonism, people working against each other, and the like. If you're talking about LARP or tabletop (with the appropriate scene framing), players don't have to be in the same place all the time. They can head off in different directions to try to frustrate the others' plans. Maybe this isn't what you did in Water-Uphill, but I find it really strange that you're advocating placing these kinds of limits on immersionist tabletop play.
Good PCs should have ambition. This need not be selfish ambition -- it could be ambition for a cause. However, what this amounts to is an unwillingness to settle for the status quo.
This is the second half of the sentence above: every PC needs to have agency to create change (within the scope). This means they need the power to enact change and then a reason to do so." See, this is great stuff! But I feel like the way you're expressing it sometime makes it less than clear.
The GM can plan and suggest relationships, but the results from play can and will vary from this.
Okay, in immersionist play, I would find it absurd for the GM to develop inter-character relationships without consulting with the players every step of the way and making these kinds of roles open, public knowledge. If you talk to Player A and they are willing to have their character take on X role for Player B's character, then go for it. You could even go step by step through a kind of chart and try to decide what each character's purpose is relative to each other. I'm sure people who design sitcoms do this all the time. You could do it with Buffy characters in a heartbeat.
Interestingly, Polaris does this right from the start. You should read Ben's draft if you haven't! NPCs and other characters are placed on this wheel on the character sheet that talks about what kind of role they take in each character's life. A good place to tie your article in with Ben's.
One criticism of immersive story is that without clear cues from traditional single-protagonist story structure, the players' attention can become lost in minutiae.
Another sentence that means nothing to me. Please explain.
In keeping with the principles of the style, a symbol should be:
• Intra-diagetic. The object needs to speak for itself, not be the result of external description or emphasis.
• Discrete. The symbol should not be construed as leading in a particular direction, or requiring a particular arrangement to look right.
The point here is that symbols should not be guides.
You definitely need more here. Lots of examples at least. When you say that the symbol needs to "speak for itself," it's hard to know what you mean without more examples.
The GM should provide starting motivations or motivating events for the PCs. ...In principle, the game can be started by a push, but over time the players and their interactions should generate continuing action.
What about the players assisting in creating their starting motivations and what not? Can you talk about opening up control more?
Role-play has often been characterized as having a contrast between story and location.
Do you mean story and setting here? I'm not sure what you mean by location. But what is generally called "setting" makes sense to me here.
---------
General thoughts:
I'd suggest that you think a bit about your intended audience for this essay, since I think it's changed quite a bit (you're not publishing this in a journal for Nordic larpers anymore). I've tried to encourange people to write PUSH articles as if they were writing to their peers, not to some imaginary audience. You don't need to be overly formal, but you do have to make me understand what you're talking about. I've played in a few games that were run in this style before (actually, I think the World of Darkness games often run well under this type of GMing style), so I have some idea of what you mean, but the details are still really vague.
Also, I'd talk more about Water-Uphill. Go all the way. Gives us snippets of play if you can. Show us how you used this to run it, because right now it's just a few details of the set-up and setting woven into an article that seems only generally connected to this game you ran. I feel like much more of what you're getting at would be more easily decipherable if you threw in some more Actual Play.
On 2/12/2005 at 9:15pm, John Kim wrote:
RE: Re: Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
OK. I'm working on the changes suggested. I think I should polish it up more before presenting a second draft, rather than asking people to read it multiple times. So here I'm just touching on points where I'm not clear which way to go or where I'm differing from the advice.
Jonathan Walton wrote: I've played in a few games that were run in this style before (actually, I think the World of Darkness games often run well under this type of GMing style), so I have some idea of what you mean, but the details are still really vague.
Also, I'd talk more about Water-Uphill. Go all the way. Gives us snippets of play if you can. Show us how you used this to run it, because right now it's just a few details of the set-up and setting woven into an article that seems only generally connected to this game you ran. I feel like much more of what you're getting at would be more easily decipherable if you threw in some more Actual Play.
I'm a bit surprised at the World of Darkness, but I don't have a lot of experience with that. And, well, Eero tells me "more theory" and you tell me "more examples". So I think my conclusion is simply to make the article longer. :-)
Jonathan Walton wrote: In the beginning, I feel like you need a bare-bones, straight-up sentence that explains what it is you're doing: "Here are suggestions on how to prepare for a game in which the players have a large say in determining what's important and what narrative threads to explore." That's what I feel like you're basically getting at.
It's rather more specific than that. I was relying more on the previous article, but I think I really need to tie the ideas together more. This is something both you and Eero said, and I think you're right. So I'm trying a more punchy, theory-rich introduction.
Jonathan Walton wrote: Also, I think you need to explain that this "my-PC-as-protag" perspective is basically an ideal of certain kinds of immersionist (and explain what you mean by immersionist) play, and you're not arguing that this applies to all styles of play.
I will definitely make more clear that this is a prescription for play for just one of many styles. However, I am loathe to invoke Threefold/Three-Way/GNS terminology in it. I plan to explain the PC-as-protagonist model in more detail, but relation to previous terminology I plan to leave open.
Jonathan Walton wrote: And before you go into Scope, Factions, etc. it would be helpful to have a list of these elements, a checklist of what you need to consider, as if this is the Town Construction guidelines in Dogs or something.
The scope needs to be small enough that the GM can have it adequately detailed, while still large enough to be interesting.
Sentences like this mean absolutely nothing to me, and you've got a fair number of them in the descriptive sections of your essay. What you're saying here is "don't make the scope too big or too small." Er... okay. How do I know when I have a scope that's too big? How do I know if it's too small?
Good points both. It's difficult to have concrete guidelines which work for all GMs, but I'll put something down.
Jonathan Walton wrote:You should make sure that the factional conflicts run deep and yet are difficult to resolve. Often, this means coming up with reasons to restrict open killing. Basically, you don't want a little push to bring the conflict to armed battle which results in the immediate elimination or subjugation of one side.
See, it seems like most of your examples assume traditional fantasy settings with loads of violence. I don't know if this is based on your imagined audience or what.
I should make this clear, but it's rather that this is a specific problem to violence and killing. You can ignore this point if your game already doesn't have much violence. But if it does (and many games do -- whether fantasy, modern, or sci-fi), then this is an important point to consider. Actually, I thought most of my examples were drawn from the Water-Uphill game, which had nearly zero violence. So I'm confused at the impression here. I just thought this was an important point to touch on for many gamers.
Jonathan Walton wrote:The PCs should be powerful relative to the scope.
You're losing me here. What does that mean? It sounds like you're trying to say, "The PCs should be in a position to enact real change, within the scope of the story."
Er, yeah. Enact real change within the Scope. (I wouldn't say within the scope of "the" story, since that implies that there is a "the" story.)
Jonathan Walton wrote:You should collectively design the PCs to have an overall bond which keeps them together.
Okay, I was really, really suprised to see the Party System turn up in a game about immersive play. I mean, geez, this kind of play is totally set-up for inter-character antagonism, people working against each other, and the like. If you're talking about LARP or tabletop (with the appropriate scene framing), players don't have to be in the same place all the time. They can head off in different directions to try to frustrate the others' plans. Maybe this isn't what you did in Water-Uphill, but I find it really strange that you're advocating placing these kinds of limits on immersionist tabletop play.
Well, I think maybe you're a little quick to identify this with types of play which you're familiar with. But clearly I should explain this better. There is very strong reason to keep the PCs together. If they are all separated, then you have one-on-one player-to-GM interaction where the other players are just watching. Again, keep in mind what I'm trying for -- that each player to identify with her own PC as protagonist. In general, you want to keep the protagonist on-screen most of the time. In LARP, this isn't so much of a worry, since it allows simultaneous action. But I'm not addressing LARP in this essay.
Jonathan Walton wrote:John Kim wrote: The GM can plan and suggest relationships, but the results from play can and will vary from this.
Okay, in immersionist play, I would find it absurd for the GM to develop inter-character relationships without consulting with the players every step of the way and making these kinds of roles open, public knowledge. If you talk to Player A and they are willing to have their character take on X role for Player B's character, then go for it. You could even go step by step through a kind of chart and try to decide what each character's purpose is relative to each other. I'm sure people who design sitcoms do this all the time. You could do it with Buffy characters in a heartbeat.
Interestingly, Polaris does this right from the start.
This might differ from group to group. However, I've never had much luck in pre-planning PC relationships. In my experience, pre-planned relationships have always fallen flat -- while all the powerful relationships have developed in-play. I don't have a strong theory reason for that, but it's been very consistently true in my experience. So, again, I should say that explicitly in the essay.
On 2/13/2005 at 3:03am, Jonathan Walton wrote:
RE: Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
Sounds like you know what you want to say, John, and that you understand where you want to go with this. I dug all your responses. Go! Go! :)
On 2/19/2005 at 10:10am, John Kim wrote:
RE: Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
Jonathan Walton wrote: Sounds like you know what you want to say, John, and that you understand where you want to go with this. I dug all your responses. Go! Go! :)
OK, my revisions aren't done yet, but I'm about to be gone offline for about a week and a half. If anyone wants to take a look, I have the not-finished revised version at
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/narrative/immersivemethods-tt.html
Otherwise, it'll have to wait until a little into March before it is finished.
On 7/3/2005 at 2:54pm, Jonathan Walton wrote:
RE: Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
Hey John,
So this draft is really, really good. Miles beyond the first one. You've made some terrific improvements. Here are some general and specific thoughts:
- first of all, it's cool how general and non-system specific the article is, that you're really talking about a style of running games that would work for almost any system or game group, assuming people were down.
- third paragraph: you say "we need an Aristotle before we can have a Brecht," and this seems to imply that you're trying to be the Artistotle of roleplaying. Is that really what you mean?
- first paragraph of Story Soup: I'm uncertain what you mean by "any formal structure" in the second sentence and "judging a scene at a time" in the third. I'm guessing that you're trying to say that planning for immersion is difficult, even if you do it No Myth style, winging it, and hope for the best.
- same section, "Relationship Charts": You say that characters should "support each other" and don't mention character-character antagonism, which I think can be really critical to this kind of play. Later on, you mention that the characters need a reason to stay together (such as family ties) so that they can have somewhat strained, but unavoidable relationships. But your talk of stews and mixing well here doesn't sound like that.
- a couple thoughts on Scope: I don't know that I agree that an immersive experience needs to have a high amount of detail. If you're mimicking something like Children's literature, things need to be iconic, repetative, and instantly recognisable, but not necessarily highly detailed. Take Snape in the first four Potter books, a snearing, power-hungry asshole. Not very complicated, but instantly recognisable. After only a few appearances, you start looking forward to him appearing because you know exactly what to expect. To paraphrase Frank-N-Furter, he makes you shiver with antici...pation. This applies beyond Children's literature too. In the beginning, stuff just needs a hook to make it memorable. Like "this character/place/thing is X." Snape is the Teacher From Hell. The King is a Harmless Old Fool. That kind of thing. Complexity can develop later, of course, but, in the beginning, people need to feel like they have some sense of the world around them. This is especially true of ongoing campaigns, when you're going to expect players to remember important bits of setting/character material between sessions. They need, more than details that they won't remember, iconic core ideas to grab hold of. Anyway, just my opinion. I used to run a Nobilis game much like what you describe, and that was one of the things I learned from it, after not being successful in some early attempts.
- secondly, from the same section: you give the example of a campaign about two warring cities, saying that, in developing their details, you should focus on their "military capabilities." This seemed a bit odd to me. Maybe if you said "military culture" or "military environment" or something. "Capabilities" sounds like detailing armaments and weapons and tanks and stuff, instead of what life would be like for the characters in the military. And that's the mistake that we've all seen in too many games about war and combat. You get lots of stats on weapons, but nothing on what it's like to be a soldier or to be in combat.
- in Factions: I love how you admit that some aspects of the game didn't run very well and then say what you learned from them. Too often, I think, people are scared to admit that sometimes you run games that aren't perfect, as if all of us are Master GMs or something.
- You conclusion is totally viable, I guess, but doesn't say a whole lot. And you need a few more References to the games you mentioned in the first section, Torg and MLwM and Harnmaster and the like.
So, anyway, there's my take on it. Hopefully you can get a few more comments before making one final revision.
On 7/5/2005 at 11:08pm, John Kim wrote:
RE: Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
Jonathan Walton wrote: - third paragraph: you say "we need an Aristotle before we can have a Brecht," and this seems to imply that you're trying to be the Artistotle of roleplaying. Is that really what you mean?
I've minorly rephrased this. I didn't mean that I individually would have the same role as Aristotle, but rather that the developers of roleplaying theory as a whole need to tackle the basics that Aristotle did. I rephrased this as "We first need to emulate Aristotle before we can have a Brecht".
Jonathan Walton wrote: - first paragraph of Story Soup: I'm uncertain what you mean by "any formal structure" in the second sentence and "judging a scene at a time" in the third. I'm guessing that you're trying to say that planning for immersion is difficult, even if you do it No Myth style, winging it, and hope for the best.
I've rephrased this slightly. "No Myth of Reality" relies on dramatic logic (i.e. what best fits the predefined genre or what is best for the story) to determine what should happen next. Within the Immersive Story model, getting an answer on those grounds is very difficult. I am suggesting an alternative approach which uses the myth of reality.
Because each scene is interpreted differently by each player, nearly any formal structure is unworkable. There are as many different goals for the scene as there are players, and thus there is no best way to handle or resolve it according to traditional dramatic principles. This multiplicity of function makes story planning essentially impossible, and even judging a single scene based on dramatic logic is difficult. However, there are methods to increase the chances that as a whole, the scenes will have impact for all the players.
Jonathan Walton wrote: - same section, "Relationship Charts": You say that characters should "support each other" and don't mention character-character antagonism, which I think can be really critical to this kind of play. Later on, you mention that the characters need a reason to stay together (such as family ties) so that they can have somewhat strained, but unavoidable relationships. But your talk of stews and mixing well here doesn't sound like that.
Well, the analogy doesn't work that well, and I think the word "support" here is perhaps ill-chosen. I meant "support" in the sense of a "supporting role" which isn't the same as one character being supportive of another. Similarly, by "mixing well", I meant that they are interesting when together in the same scene. I've rephrased this as:
Player character relationships are particularly vital in this, because all of PC will be on-stage at once. They need to be distinct, and yet mix well each other. By analogy, in a structured meal you can have ingredients that don't mix well. But in a stew, the mix is of primary importance. This doesn't mean the characters need to work harmoniously together. It means they need to be interesting if regularly in scenes together, like having "chemistry".
Jonathan Walton wrote: - a couple thoughts on Scope: I don't know that I agree that an immersive experience needs to have a high amount of detail. If you're mimicking something like Children's literature, things need to be iconic, repetative, and instantly recognisable, but not necessarily highly detailed. Take Snape in the first four Potter books, a snearing, power-hungry asshole. Not very complicated, but instantly recognisable. After only a few appearances, you start looking forward to him appearing because you know exactly what to expect. To paraphrase Frank-N-Furter, he makes you shiver with antici...pation. This applies beyond Children's literature too. In the beginning, stuff just needs a hook to make it memorable. Like "this character/place/thing is X." Snape is the Teacher From Hell. The King is a Harmless Old Fool. That kind of thing. Complexity can develop later, of course, but, in the beginning, people need to feel like they have some sense of the world around them. This is especially true of ongoing campaigns, when you're going to expect players to remember important bits of setting/character material between sessions. They need, more than details that they won't remember, iconic core ideas to grab hold of. Anyway, just my opinion. I used to run a Nobilis game much like what you describe, and that was one of the things I learned from it, after not being successful in some early attempts.
I would agree that the use of icons and/or archetypes is very useful at filling out a situation and/or setting. It's not something that I cover here, and I think adding it in at this point would be stretching. I might throw in a reference to it for a further article. I'll think about where that should go.
Jonathan Walton wrote: - secondly, from the same section: you give the example of a campaign about two warring cities, saying that, in developing their details, you should focus on their "military capabilities." This seemed a bit odd to me. Maybe if you said "military culture" or "military environment" or something. "Capabilities" sounds like detailing armaments and weapons and tanks and stuff, instead of what life would be like for the characters in the military. And that's the mistake that we've all seen in too many games about war and combat. You get lots of stats on weapons, but nothing on what it's like to be a soldier or to be in combat.
Well, yes and no. The military capabilities are important because I am presuming that military action will be played out. I would not generally suggest putting in "filler" scenes of ordinary military life for that purpose. As far as the game goes, details about how they cook their food are not of primary importance. What life is like should emerge from what they do, not be described as background. Still, culture is important, so I rephrased this as "military culture and capabilities".
Jonathan Walton wrote: - in Factions: I love how you admit that some aspects of the game didn't run very well and then say what you learned from them. Too often, I think, people are scared to admit that sometimes you run games that aren't perfect, as if all of us are Master GMs or something.
Thanks.
Jonathan Walton wrote: - You conclusion is totally viable, I guess, but doesn't say a whole lot. And you need a few more References to the games you mentioned in the first section, Torg and MLwM and Harnmaster and the like.
Hmm. OK, this is another one I'll have to ponder. I see your point, and I'll work on a punchier conclusion. So this and your "icons" topic are two take-aways that I'll work on for later.
On 7/6/2005 at 2:03am, Jonathan Walton wrote:
RE: Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
Sweet, sounds good. I understand about not wanting to get into the icon thing, since that's not really a main point here, but, like I said, I've just found in incredible helpful in this style of play, because it helps players feel like they know the world and its characters much more quickly. Which, in turn, leads them to start acting in the environment, making waves, instead of just reacting to what happens.
On 7/21/2005 at 4:20pm, John Kim wrote:
RE: Re: Draft: Immersive Story Methods for Tabletop Play
Jonathan wrote: Sweet, sounds good. I understand about not wanting to get into the icon thing, since that's not really a main point here, but, like I said, I've just found in incredible helpful in this style of play, because it helps players feel like they know the world and its characters much more quickly. Which, in turn, leads them to start acting in the environment, making waves, instead of just reacting to what happens.
OK, I have posted a final draft now, which I've gone over for grammar and spelling and such. I have rewritten the brief conclusion, and added a paragraph on the iconic importance, as follows:
The familiarity of the elements is also important. For example, the Holy Roman Empire of 1802 is reasonably well documented by historians, but it will be difficult for players to internalize the details. Familiar elements take on an iconic value which is a useful shorthand. In my Water-Uphill World campaign, this was actually a difficulty in getting started. The game was in the style of children's fantasy stories such as Narnia, but the setting was quite alien. In contrast, my following campaign mixed two familiar historical elements -- the vikings of the Icelandic sagas, and Northeastern native Americans of early contact. Although it was an alternate history with many altered details, the use of familiar, iconic elements made the latter campaign easier to get a handle on for the players.
The full version is again at:
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/narrative/immersivemethods-tt.html