contracycle wrote:

Marco wrote:
I'm just sayin'

Yes Marco, but I think its that nuance that we can now lay to rest. I fully agree that retrospectively the prodct of sim oplay is something that can rightly be termed "a story" even if one in need of significant editing. I think however that this casual term is sometimes misleading in the apparent attribution of a story-based CA to sim. I like Silmemune's construction because it does not exhibit the same conflation.

Transcript

An account of the imaginary events of play without reference to role-playing procedures. A Transcript may or may not be a Story.

Split from Sim has not be discussed as story but it needs to be so at Marco's request.

Best,
Ron

Marco wrote:
According to the glossary, Story is found in the *Transcript* of play--a re-telling of play after the fact. Therefore, in any game wherein there can be said to be Story, it must be retrospective, whether Sim, Nar, or Gamist.

I believe that the glossary is significantly out of step with the way Story is used in common discourse here (Ron also talks about players who are using Sim play to make stories "just in retrospect or in pre-play prep.")

An account of the imaginary events of play without reference to role-playing procedures. A Transcript may or may not be a Story.

Although "Story Now" sounds like it's different than "Story Afterward" it doesn't match what the glossary says. It says this:

Story Now

Commitment to Addressing (producing, heightening, and resolving) Premise through play itself. The epiphenomenal outcome for the Transcript from such play is almost always a story. One of the three currently-recognized Creative Agendas. As a top priority of role-playing, the defining feature of Narrativist play.

Marco wrote:
What this means is that, in fact, with Story Now, the Story still exists in the Transcript--afterward. The term Story Now, despite containing the word 'Now,' does not mean that story, still a property of transcript, appears somewhere else in the game.

When you talk about a Transcript being 'storified,' what do you mean to be saying is different for Nar play vs. Sim play?

contracycle wrote:
Story Now does mean Story Now, story happening right here. I read the paragraph you site as indicating that the actual transcript after play will exhibit the traits of formal story - things like premise and theme, climax, foreshadowing et al. Thats because that actually happened in play. So, Story indeed happened Now AND appears in the subsequent transcript as a reflection of what happened in actual play.

I think - certainly thinking of my own Sim games this is true - that in Sim story does not happen Now if at all. That is, play proceeds and the ultimate transcript is mostly just a sequence of events. When that sequence of events is recounted to someone else, it will be "storified" in the same way we "storify" any given anecdote.

Gareth's explanation is exactly how I view the difference between Nar's Story Now and story generated by Sim play.

I think this can be even more exaggerated in story produced by Gamist play. I remember as a lad playing AD&D and adventuring in a dungeon which was being designed as we played by random rolls on the dungeon generator in the DMG. We fought monsters suitable to the appropriate level by rolling on the corresponding random monster table. AND THEN we wrote the "story" afterwards with all kinds of retro justifications for why the dungeon was the way it was and why the monsters were there. In the part I remember most clearly we decided that the Beholder (encountered in a deep level) was the "boss" of the dungeon and was raising an army of orcs and goblins to invade the surface. And the Gelatenous Cubes and Carrior Crawlers and the like were brought in by the Beholder to keep the dungeon clean so the army wouldn't die of disease. Which made for a pretty good story when we were 10...but was totally retroactive since all of those elements were purely randomly generated and had no built in story rationale to them at all.

I think the same process goes on in pure sim play. The monsters may not be randomly generated but the choices the players make, being not known in advance, serve the same purpose.

I think Illusionist play in many ways is actually Story Before, which is related to the many discussions had elsewhere about the uncomfortable division that exists under the label Sim currently.

Can you expand on this? What makes the transcript of a Nar game more than just a "sequence of events?"

Valamir wrote:

Can you expand on this? What makes the transcript of a Nar game more than just a "sequence of events?"

That's a real softball Marco. The difference is that the transcript of a Nar game has thematic meaning that was present during actual play and resonated during actual play because the players were addressing premise during actual play.

Hi Marco,

I think you're corrupting the definitions in the Glossary a little. By addressing Premise during play, a group/person is creating story in a mindful fashion, at the moment, as a "point," in the sense that Lisa (TheGM) calls "playing on purpose."

If one is playing in any other way imaginable and still manages, in retrospect, to have created a story, then the "other ways imaginable" are not magically transformed into Narrativist play.

There doesn't seem to me to be any controversy or inherent difficulty in these statements.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

At the risk of shifting the dicussion somewhat, I think the real question about Sim versus Nar Transcripts is what distinguishes them. Making the distinction during play is not a solution to this. I've gotten the sense that there should be an observable tendency for differentiation between Sim and Nar Transcripts, even when both are overtly "stories" (i.e. have themes and such).

Is there a way to describe this difference? Or are Transcripts poor tools to make this distinction? If so, what is missing in a Transcript that gives us the ability to distinguish during play? Should we then not abandon or upgrade the concept of Transcript so that we may do so?


- Mendel S.

Hi Mendel,

The transcript tells us nothing about the processes of play, or more specifically, what made it fun for the participants. It is 100% worthless for this purpose. That's the theoretically-sound, fundamental answer. I suggest giving up this idea:

I've gotten the sense that there should be an observable tendency for differentiation between Sim and Nar Transcripts

Ron Edwards wrote: Hi Marco,

I think you're corrupting the definitions in the Glossary a little. By addressing Premise during play, a group/person is creating story in a mindful fashion, at the moment, as a "point," in the sense that Lisa (TheGM) calls "playing on purpose."

[snip]
Best,
Ron

Hi Marco,

When you say,

We can say he is not 'mindful'--but can we say he is not 'creating story?'

Ron Edwards wrote: Hi Marco,

When you say,

We can say he is not 'mindful'--but can we say he is not 'creating story?'

... it's a bit like saying, "When I connect two wheels with an axle and push it around, am I not creating a vehicle?"

Yeah, I am. Such an act is potentially "utterly unmindful," but frankly, the chance of such a thing occurring in this way, or failing to become mindful in the near future, seems low to me. Low as in "vanishing."

When Sim play creates story, it is probably rare-to-vanishing that it does so in the "monkeys flew out my butt" way - no mindfulness, just "happening." As I see it, far more common is having one of the participants begin with a story in mind, then share it with, instil it in, or inflict it upon (views differ) the other participants. Also common is having this participant conduct this authority/influence during play itself in a more improvisational fashion. And also common is having this participant retrofit the play-itself into more story-like form as a form of prep for the next session.

Therefore I don't spend a lot of time considering the process/product issue that you're raising here. I don't think it's of much consequence, in terms of an actual phenomenon.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

If I'm reading this right, thematic presence in the transcript is an accurate indicator of nar, although it is very imprecise. And you cannot do much better using just a transcript. If that is the case, and we have some more precise and equally accurate way to identify nar from play, what additional observation is lacking the in transcript which gives that precision?


- Mendel S.

Ron Edwards wrote:

I think you're corrupting the definitions in the Glossary a little. By addressing Premise during play, a group/person is creating story in a mindful fashion, at the moment, as a "point," in the sense that Lisa (TheGM) calls "playing on purpose."

Lisa,

The problem is you need something besides intent. After all, how can you distinguish unconscious, or unavailable intent from an accident? And this issue is not simply theoretical, many people play differently than they intend. Which do we take as correct the intent they claim, or the intent their actions imply?

There needs to be something else, which we can all point to to say these are indicative of nar versus sim (no need for certainty just a better judgement than that which has confounded things in this case). The transcript is insufficiently precise. Intent is untrustworthy.

Perhaps the solution is a meta-transcript, which incorporates records of techniques and the SIS they generate. Or perhaps we should just accept that distinguishing between sim and nar along this border is infeasible.

-Mendel S.

Hi guys,

The imaginary events in play do not tell us what happened in real life.

The situation is the same if I told you to read a book of fiction, then tell me what the author was going through or thinking about when they were writing the book. You might be able to pull elements, but you wouldn't be able to say for sure what the author used as inspiration or their thought process. You could tell me the premise, but then again, all traditional storytelling is done with the goal of expressing a premise, whereas roleplaying has many possible goals on the part of the participants.

The Creative Agenda is held by the players, not by the characters, so we need to look at the actions and decisions of the players as the key to determine what's going on. And the telling signs are when folks within the group, or the group as a whole chooses to do support an action or decision that supports one CA and not another.

Therefore, to make that judgement, you either have to have been there and observed play for some period of time, or have a video or audio tape showing the group in play. The key point for either is noting the approval/disapproval mechanism of the group and the individuals in the group.

For the most part, people who play don't consciously pick up on the approval/disapproval bits, and they don't ever think about mapping "what's going on in play" to "what's going on with Alice, Bill and Cathy". This makes gathering accounts from players kinda hard, but not impossible, if you ask the right questions and get honest answers.

As far as audio/video recordings, you probably could pick up enough tells over a period of time to call it, but the key point is being able to read the expressions and reactions of the players.

Chris

Hey guys,

Chris is right--although it's not stated what the 'tells' are for Narrativist play, trying to figure out specifically what unconscious motives are at work is even harder. The mindfulness issue is a separate one than this (although it's important, related, and worth another thread quite soon).

This is about the concept of "Story After"--which was often contrasted with Story Now--which, yes, did seem to hinge on intent or mindfulness or something like that.

But, we've evolved since then: the glossary defines story as a part of transcript--something that definitionally comprises past play.

Any long time poster on The Forge, can tell you that the Narrativists are enjoying the thematic elements of play more than their Sim counterparts--that's what defines them--but it's quite another thing (today) to say that Narrativists some different kind of story that has another definition or that non-Nar play must be self-deceiving (like the supposition that Simulationist might be unconsciously dressing up their transcripts to include themeatic elements).

What we're trying to get at (here) is whether Narrativists create story (thematic elements of transcript) 'during play' whereas Simulationists create 'story after play.'

-Marco

Wormwood wrote: Lisa,

The problem is you need something besides intent.

Hello,

I smell unnecessary contention, arising partly because the words intent and motive have undergone a fairly bloody history here, long ago.

Lisa, perhaps the best way to look at it is demonstrated intent. That's why I like to say "agenda," because an agenda can never be "unexpressed." It can be hidden, subtle, or covert, but not there's no such thing as an agenda without consequences - real interactions and events show us agenda, period.

If people can agree that we are talking about expressed phenomena, and merely acknowledge that some sort of internal processes (intent, motive, etc) are involved without debating what they are, then I think we'll discover a lot more agreement in the last few threads than superficially appears to be the case.

Best,
Ron

Very good, then. Please mentally edit in the word agenda in place of the word intent in my last post.

Thanks. :)

Editted to add (to prevent unneccesary confusion) Agenda is indeed *very* trustworthy *IF* it is clearly stated, understood, and acted upon by all participants. A Nar game can not, repeat, can not turn into a Sim game if everyone is following the stated agenda of playing that specific type of game. This, in a nutshell, is Playing on Purpose.

Marco,

I think the issue with transcript as story has been answered. In essence, nar implies a story transcript, but a story transcript does not imply nar.

Which means transcript cannot tell us CA, but perhaps only give us support for a CA conclusion (inductively).


Lisa,

If we confine ourselves to observable intent, then I suggest we consider a meta-transcript which contains all observations of the game (at least with minimal interference of play - ideally no questions and answers, as asking about a theme can easily change borderline play to another CA). In what I've been working on I call that meta-transcript the content of play. I've also found that while you can rarely observe most play content, only a small and identifiable subset of it must be extracted to distinguish play behaviors, such as CA. (Although this subset varies significantly based on what you are trying to determine.)

I agree the entirely honest and open play group is a case where the identification of agenda is entirely trivial. But we also want to be able to identify less overt signs and patterns, otherwise the distinction becomes useless except for groups that have already made it.


I hope that helps, and thank you for the clarification,

-Mendel S.

Wormwood wrote: Marco,

I think the issue with transcript as story has been answered. In essence, nar implies a story transcript, but a story transcript does not imply nar.

Which means transcript cannot tell us CA, but perhaps only give us support for a CA conclusion (inductively).

Hiya,

I've lost all sense of relevance for this thread or any post in it, so I'm pretty much stepping out.

I don't see any unanswered questions, because I don't really see any questions. Maybe I'll come back in about a week or so to re-read it, and maybe then it'll be like, "Oh, I get it," and then I'll try to contribute. Until then, it's all a big shrug.

Best,
Ron

Marco wrote:

Wormwood wrote: Marco,

I think the issue with transcript as story has been answered. In essence, nar implies a story transcript, but a story transcript does not imply nar.

Which means transcript cannot tell us CA, but perhaps only give us support for a CA conclusion (inductively).

Yes that's true, but my question wasn't about determing CA. It was about the Ron's and Gareth's use of the phrasing 'creating story retroactively.'

[SNIP]

-Marco

I think it's a good analogy about how Nar players being said to "play on purpose" (although it's quite possible to play Nar without 'intending to' as Ron points out--if you are consistently addressing Premise even if you aren't thinking in terms of an author, you're playing Nar, at least according to many long-time posters).

However: story is still created the same way in any CA: events happen in play and are added to the transcript. When the transcript is examined (containing only past play) it may be seen to have elements of theme.

Thus, all story is retroactive.

I think the confusion happens because many posters see a fundamental difference in play that might create story from play that will more often create story: but as Wormwood pointed out, the transcript is the same either way.

Also: despite the distinction I think Ron was drawing, since Sim creates theme as reliably as Nar (if the right techniques are used) the amount of story-transcripts from Sim compared to Nar isn't really relevant (I think that if people think Sim is far more common than Nar, then the total number of Sim-stories is probably much higher than Nar stories and not the reverse).

Basically, I think 'retroactive story' is old terminology and is out of date with the glossary.

-Marco

My understanding of “retroactive story” means altering/editing the fabula of a game so that in the retelling it NOW conforms to story where one did not exist as a direct result of the actions of the players – the syuzhet.

Thus Narrativism reliably creates fabula that contains Story without need of post game editing to get it in there. Sim on the other hand frequently requires lots of editing of the fabula to get Story.

What “on purpose” or “mindful,” in the case of Nar, means is that the players are specifically making the kinds decisions that reliably results in their fabula containing Theme. This is accomplished by players addressing a Premise until conclusion.

Just to be clear, I am using the gloss version of Story – transcript with a Theme.

The problem seems to be a confounding of terms, which supports Marco's claim that we should abandon the idea of a retroactive story.


Marco seems to be saying that:

Sim can reasonably produce a Transcript which is a story.


Jay seems to be saying that:

A (non-story) Transcript may be modified into a story.

Nar typically produces a Transcript which is a story.


None of these contradict each other. What causes a contradiction is the use of an assumption that "A Transcript which is a story required Nar." But Ron has already pointed out a Transcript doesn't give us that kind of precision. What causes the causes confounding is that anything a Transcript is able to say about a game is "retroactive", so if a transcript is a story it is a retroactive story (with respect to the play it records). However if a transcript is modified into something else, this can be construed as a post play re-write of the play, i.e. also a "retroactive" story. These are clearly different phenomena, but without some further clarity there is no way to disambiguate the term retroactive story, making it largely irrelevant to the discussion.

Also, the utility of talking about modified transcripts seems only relevent if you have fallen into the fallacy that since Nar implies a story transcript, a story transcript implies Nar. The positive does not (in general) imply the converse.

I hope that helps,

-Mendel S.

I think I see the troublesome issue here. There is a difference between the literal meaning of the phrase "Story Now" using the glossary definition of "story" -- and the meaning of Narrativism. Let me try giving three cases.

1) Players are playing with the mindful agenda of "addressing premise" as their purpose. As the transcript happens, they can see the results of their efforts. When the transcript is complete, it forms a story.

2) Players are playing with some other agenda, such as following their character's motivations or competing over some resource. Nevertheless, when the transcript is complete, it also forms a story.

3) Players are playing with some other agenda, as in #2. When the transcript is complete, it does not form a coherent story. Later, a player tells a story about happened, editing and perhaps embellishing the transcript to do so.

Now, here's the trick. The definition Ron suggests of Creative Agenda says that #1 is Nar, while #2 and #3 are not. However, story is defined in terms of the transcript -- so both #1 and #2 are identical in terms of story produced. Now, one can claim that #2 happens very rarely -- i.e. comparable to waiting for accidents. That's debatable but I'll accept it as a valid claim for the moment. But if that is true, then transcript should be a reliable indicator of Creative Agenda, except in rare cases. So I see a split in usage, or at least emphasis, in what Narrativism is about.

Narrativism-as-story: The creation of a story is definitional to Narrativism -- where "story" is a quality of transcript as defined in the glossary and commonly thought of in other media such as books. Sim will not reliably produce a transcript with story, and can create stories only by editing and embellishing after-the-fact. This means that transcript is a fairly reliable criteria, particularly over several sessions. If something reliably creates transcripts-with-story, then it is Narrativism.

Narrativism-as-experience: The creation of a story is necessary but not sufficient for Narrativism. i.e. Narrativism is more than just story. Various other forms of play will also reliably create story. So even if I am reliably creating transcripts which have story, I may not be getting true Narrativism. There is some other quality to play that is required.

It seems to me that in practice people seem divided over usage -- or even perhaps drift back and forth between these two.

Wormwood wrote: I agree the entirely honest and open play group is a case where the identification of agenda is entirely trivial. But we also want to be able to identify less overt signs and patterns, otherwise the distinction becomes useless except for groups that have already made it.

Hey John,

John Kim wrote: Narrativism-as-story: The creation of a story is definitional to Narrativism -- where "story" is a quality of transcript as defined in the glossary and commonly thought of in other media such as books. Sim will not reliably produce a transcript with story, and can create stories only by editing and embellishing after-the-fact. This means that transcript is a fairly reliable criteria, particularly over several sessions. If something reliably creates transcripts-with-story, then it is Narrativism.

John Kim wrote: Narrativism-as-experience: The creation of a story is necessary but not sufficient for Narrativism. i.e. Narrativism is more than just story. Various other forms of play will also reliably create story. So even if I am reliably creating transcripts which have story, I may not be getting true Narrativism. There is some other quality to play that is required.

Silmenume wrote:
Narrativism-as-process: The creation of a story is typical (even expected) but not sufficient for Narrativism. i.e. Narrativism is not equivalent to story. Various other forms of play can possibly create story, but not nearly as reliably. So even if I am creating transcripts which have story, this is not evidence enough to claim that I am expressing the Narrativism CA. There is some other quality to play that is required. This quality is the address of Premise.

My take on the issues…

Silmenume wrote: Narrativism is not an experience, it is a process. To rephrase I would offer –

Narrativism-as-process: The creation of a story is typical (even expected) but not sufficient for Narrativism. i.e. Narrativism is not equivalent to story. Various other forms of play can possibly create story, but not nearly as reliably. So even if I am creating transcripts which have story, this is not evidence enough to claim that I am expressing the Narrativism CA. There is some other quality to play that is required. This quality is the address of Premise.

Wormwood wrote: The problem seems to be a confounding of terms, which supports Marco's claim that we should abandon the idea of a retroactive story.

Sim can reasonably produce a Transcript which is a story.

These are clearly different phenomena, but without some further clarity there is no way to disambiguate the term retroactive story, making it largely irrelevant to the discussion.

Also, the utility of talking about modified transcripts seems only relevent if you have fallen into the fallacy that since Nar implies a story transcript, a story transcript implies Nar. The positive does not (in general) imply the converse.

This is inconsistent hedging between the two, in my opinion. You're trying to deny that it is the product, and yet make a claim about reliability at the same time. What if something does reliably create transcripts with story? Does that tell us anything about whether it is Narrativist? If not, then you need to drop the claim about reliability from the definition.

By saying it is a process, you are emphasizing technique -- i.e. Narrativism is one way of creating story. Different ways of gaming may reliably create story, but if you stick to one particular process of creating story, then you are Narrativist.

contracycle wrote:

Sim can reasonably produce a Transcript which is a story.

... which I deny, without serious editing.

A group of supers are sent on a mission to rescue a turned Nazi scientist during WW II. His 'capture' will be of great importance to the allied war effort. Along the way of searching for him, they come across various atrocities of his (and may have to fight some). In the end, assuming they overcome the obstacles and don't abandon the mission (both of which are reasonable for the characters) they find him.

An NPC will bring up the question as to whether he should be rescued (or terminated or left to the Nazis).

Marco wrote:
This would at least re-define Transcript as listed in the glossary.

4. Reliably. That is, if I ran it and the power-scale was approproiately judged and the players had agreed to play generally patriotic (but not necessiarily dogmatic) supers recruited by the allied forces the game would proceed along a sufficiently predictable path).

Therefore: It seems to me it should make a Story without editing being required.

I don't see why this kind of game wouldn't be considered bog-standard or in need of editing.

Maybe you could explain how this example might pertain to TITBB--perhaps that will shed some light on why it wouldn't reliably generate story?

contra,

You cannot prove non-existence inductively. Sim can, with the right techniques, and with appropriate circumstances produce a transcript which is a story with no editing. Is this probable? Hard to say, but claiming it is not possible by listing situations in which it doesn't occur is insufficient. Marco provided an example of the situation, that is enough to show that it can happen. (Reliability given appropriate circumstances is a trivial thing, which is what Marco seems to be getting at. Contra, you seem to be saying that sim play does not often reach those circumstances, which doesn't really matter, if in those cirumstances the transcripts are unmodified stories.)

Also, in the revisionist sense of retro-active story you are building bad theory. Since story is identified via interpretation, there isn't a point where you can certify that "re-writing" does not take place.

Lastly, if your claim of the converse fallacy (story transcript implies Nar) were true, then this implies that transcript is all that is needed to distinguish Nar, which as Ron pointed out is not valid.


The border between Nar and Sim is complex and deserves study, but the approach you are taking in defining that border is at best unhelpful, and at worst obfuscatory.

I hope that helps,

-Mendel S.

Wormwood wrote:
Also, in the revisionist sense of retro-active story you are building bad theory. Since story is identified via interpretation, there isn't a point where you can certify that "re-writing" does not take place.

Lastly, if your claim of the converse fallacy (story transcript implies Nar) were true, then this implies that transcript is all that is needed to distinguish Nar, which as Ron pointed out is not valid.

The border between Nar and Sim is complex and deserves study, but the approach you are taking in defining that border is at best unhelpful, and at worst obfuscatory.

contracycle wrote:
Sheesh, note all the qualifiers. What if they ARE dogmatic. Thats exactly the kind of editing I am pointing too: your literal transcript might contain an hour long argument as to what is the appropriately patriotic action which may be ommitted when the play is recounted or remembered.

Because they are not engaged with the address of premise. The raw material contains many other things which will be ommitted in any telling of the story. Or just the accidents of play - mabe they shoot the NPC whose supposed to raise the moral issue in act 1. Maybe they don't care as they are only here to trounce nazis and don't care a fig about the "moral paradox". Simply writing such a scenario, even running it, is no guarantee whatever that a story will be the end product.

contracycle wrote:

Wormwood wrote:
Also, in the revisionist sense of retro-active story you are building bad theory. Since story is identified via interpretation, there isn't a point where you can certify that "re-writing" does not take place.

Thats kinda the point.

contracycle wrote:

John Kim wrote: By saying it is a process, you are emphasizing technique -- i.e. Narrativism is one way of creating story. Different ways of gaming may reliably create story, but if you stick to one particular process of creating story, then you are Narrativist.

That does not follow as far as I can see. Firstly I dispute different ways of gaming can reliably create story, secondly I dispute that Narr is characterised by one particular process. Narr is THE process of creating actual story here and now, as I see it. Sim is NOT.

Marco wrote:
I'm not sure what 'the point' is though: If Story is something that exists only in the eye of the beholder and has no basis in transcript (i.e. that it's all deconstructionist and I can claim I see story in a completely accurately rendered transcript of a hack-and-slash D&D dungeon as easliy and correctly as I see it in a Sorcerer game) then, well, why should I believe in Story Now? Or even Story-At-All?

I think that it is profitable to use a 'reasonable' defintion of story and there are certainly cases where we have exacting transcipts of games (IRC games). Wouldn't those count as accurate?

John Kim wrote:
As I said, there are different concepts being expounded here which are both using the label of "Narrativism". I don't think either side is right or wrong -- they're just conflicting usage which has to be made clear. It seems to me that your usage is what I described as Narrativism-as-story.

Really, I like that definition because it seems clear to me. Anything which reliably creates transcripts with story is by definition Narrativism.

However, it is not the definition which many people have historically meant when they used the word "Narrativism". Notably, in his Narrativism essay a year ago Ron came out with the idea that transcript was not useful in determining the Creative Agenda of a game.

I also note that you support Jay's idea of Simulationism-as-myth-making. Again, there's nothing wrong with that idea, but it's different than prior definitions of the word "Simulationism". For clarity of discussion, I think this should be clearly distinguished from other usage. For example, you could label it as a variant model (like the "3D" model or Scarlet Jester's "GEN" model). Indeed, I would strongly urge coining new terms even if the concepts are similar (perhaps Story-ism and Myth-ism ?).

Thats facetious, yiou are in no doubt that story exists and can be produced.

contracycle wrote:
I have already allowed multiple times that an after-the-fact transcript might resembvle a story, but that I consider this unlikely and improbable. I cannot imagine that any mode of play other than the adress of premise will concentrate its action on the address of premise. And if it fails to do so then the strictly observed action that appears in a transcript will contain non-story elements; the output as a whole will not be story like.

Marco wrote:
I think that if we do define Nar-as-story and Sim-as-Something-Else then a great deal of what has been considered Sim play would be redefined to Nar play and games like Theatrix would become Nar.

It seems like you are arguing for a major departure from Ron's essay and theory and while that's fine,

4. The players don't care about the premise: Of course I think this is the determining factor between Sim and Nar. But I don't think it is necessiarly clear in the transcript of play:

contracycle wrote:

It seems like you are arguing for a major departure from Ron's essay and theory and while that's fine,

I don't think I am. Nothing I have suggested contradicts any standing information about the CA's that I can think of presently.

The real question: after reading the transcript and recognizing it as a story, what can be said about the Creative Agenda that was involved during the role-playing? The answer is, absolutely nothing. We don't know whether people played it Gamist, Simulationist, or Narrativist, or any combination of the three. A story can be produced through any Creative Agenda. The mere presence of story as the product of role-playing is not a GNS-based issue.

I neither claimed that it was NECESSARILY clear, nor necessarily CLEAR. I said only that I EXPECT there will be identifiable differences. Please stop over-extending my argument.

Marco wrote:
What I was refering to was the Narrativism Essay:

(Emphasis in the original)

I'm sorry you're reading me as over-extending: I'm discussing a given starting-scenario example. I'm trying to figure out is what you think would be different between Sim and Nar in the play of that scenario and why the thematic elements "embeded" in the situation wouldn't (in that specific case) reliably appear in the transcript.

contracycle wrote:
The reason I think your scenario is bad and over-extended is that it starts from an overtly story-structured sim game, which is itself such a complicated beast its terrible example to discuss.

But even if it were the case that such a game was designed and run my argument would not be invalidated; in the first place such a transcript could be produced by railroading, the presence of a transcript not implying that the game was in fact succesful and that the participants enjoyed it.

And if you succeeded in running such a game and everyone did enjoy it, and the transcript was in fact a story in situ, then you would have carried out the impossible thing before breakfast/found el dorado and the only question I would have is how that was done.

A group of supers are sent on a mission to rescue a turned Nazi scientist during WW II. His 'capture' will be of great importance to the allied war effort. Along the way of searching for him, they come across various atrocities of his (and may have to fight some). In the end, assuming they overcome the obstacles and don't abandon the mission (both of which are reasonable for the characters) they find him.

An NPC will bring up the question as to whether he should be rescued (or terminated or left to the Nazis).

contracycle wrote:

John Kim wrote: However, it is not the definition which many people have historically meant when they used the word "Narrativism". Notably, in his Narrativism essay a year ago Ron came out with the idea that transcript was not useful in determining the Creative Agenda of a game.

Agreed - I don't think it is particularly important either. All I was trying to explain was the phenomonen of sim players retroactively organising the events they experienced into a story, and then laying claim to Story en bloc.

contracycle wrote:

Marco wrote: What I was refering to was the Narrativism Essay: (...)

Fine. That was the state-of-the-art then. I am proposing that in the light of new development the state of the art is now different. I may of course be wrong. I still largely agree that the CA is not explicit in the transcript, but am suggesting that by dispersing some of the multiple senses of story we should be able to distinguish sequence-of-events story from premise-addressing story. While we were/are treating story as an indivisible whole that was virtually impossible to do or discuss.

contracycle wrote:

Marco wrote: I'm sorry you're reading me as over-extending: I'm discussing a given starting-scenario example. I'm trying to figure out is what you think would be different between Sim and Nar in the play of that scenario and why the thematic elements "embeded" in the situation wouldn't (in that specific case) reliably appear in the transcript.

Because in my experience of Sim play there is no premise, so no addressing of premise or anything like it would appear in the transcript.

The reason I think your scenario is bad and over-extended is that it starts from an overtly story-structured sim game, which is itself such a complicated beast its terrible example to discuss.

Hi John,
I hadn't specified what game to use--but thinking about it, I would tend to suggest that scenario for any of the standard 'Simulationist' systems (Hero, SAS, Godlike, Mutants and Masterminds, GURPS Supers, etc.). Doing this with The Pool might indeed be different than doing it with Mutants and Masterminds or Godlike--but I think (maybe) that's a bit tangential to my point in bringing it up.*

I'm more concerned about the ideas that successfully running this game is approaching El Dorado or TITBB. This seems based on the idea that:
(a) Perhaps the scenario is distinctly unusual or trouble prone for Sim play in some way.
(b) That maybe to "make the scenario work" reliably and functionally would tend to indicate railroading was going on.
(c) That perhaps there would be elements of transcript that would veer significantly from the proposed "direction of play" for reasons unrelated to the premise.
(d) etc... (other objections that this scenario is a difficult or edge-condition case)

I think this is a very standard Exploration of Character/Exploration of Situation game that would be easily and reliably run and would play out in a pretty predictable manner (i.e. it doesn't seem absurd that it would tend to run more or less 'as written'--and that concept includes the possibility of the PC's deciding to abort the mission or execute/leave the scientist because they've had it with him).

-Marco
* Maybe system is the most important part of the question and I'm missing something. Certainly running this in AD&D would seriously make the set-up a bit unlikely. Doing it in Sorcerer would be different too. I just think those proposals are perhaps, obscuring the questions about the viability of 'story style Sim games.'

I've long thought this was a rather simple question, the one complicating factor, really, being Ron's rather idiosyncratic use of the word "transcript."

To my mind, a transcript is a careful inscription of everything that occurs during a span of time, somehow delimited. Thus trans-script (writing across). This is as opposed to, for example, a script in the sense of theater.

Thus a transcript of a theatrical performance would include all sorts of events that are specific to that single performance, many of which are not registered in the script. One could limit the transcript to what happens on stage, or include also audience reaction and noise and such, but in any event the transcript is distinct to that single performance and is non-repeatable.

What Ron describes as a transcript is essentially a redacted version of events within SIS, rather less specific than a hypothetical script which would, after all, include at the least everything said in-character.

So:

I propose that "transcript" be used for a total account of play events, in SIS and otherwise. What Ron has been calling a transcript I'd tend to call a "redaction" or an "account."

If people don't like these terms, we need another for what I'm calling "transcript", because we're chasing our tails over what is and is not in the transcript.

Now given this, we have (for the moment) the Lehrich-transcript (transcript) and the Edwards-transcript (account), T-L and T-E for short, okay?

Now examining the T-L should generate an understanding of CA. Examining the T-E will not, except under very peculiar circumstances. Which was Ron's point in the essay.

--------
Now we get to the problem of product and process. The Big Model is founded on process, not product. Since the T-E does not reflect process, and is just a form of product, it does not reflect CA.

However, as Ron points out, the T-E can certainly be a story, of whatever quality.

Therefore, Ron's point is that any CA can generate story (or myth, or whatever).

At the same time, Nar is a CA whose focus and method is devoted to generating story NOW. Presumably this means that most successful Nar games generate a T-E that is a story. By contrast, this is unusual -- but possible -- with Sim play.

But this does not mean, logically, that that which produces story is Nar. That's a fallacy.

Note that Ron is insistent that story very rarely arises from Sim play -- it happens as often as "monkeys fly out of my butt." I happen to think he's wrong about this, but his point, I think, is that "Oujia-board" play (in which Sim players kind of sit around hoping that story will magically happen) is mostly a waste of time. Ron's point, I think, is that if these players really want story to happen now, they'd be better off playing Nar, where they have a reasonable -- even good -- shot at getting what they want.

Now there is a certain weaving-about here between process and product, since we're saying that these players want some product and are confused about process, but Ron's main emphasis is that they ought to be focused on process, because that will produce what they want. The focus on product is ass-backwards. Again, I think this is slightly off-kilter analytically, but it makes good practical sense: if you want to build a table, whanging a bunch of bits of wood together in a vaguely table-shaped way is less effective than actually learning how to do a little carpentry and making a table.

All of which, I'm sorry to say, seems to me to make this whole retroactive business a matter of deep confusion -- unless it is intended as a sharp challenge to the Big Model. Retroactive examination is founded on a product focus, which the Big Model is emphatically not. It's perfectly plausible to generate a good analytical theory of gaming that is founded on product -- although I'd suggest that an extensive transcript (T-L) would be more effective for the purpose -- but such a theory has little to do with the Big Model.

-----------

My basic disagreement with Marco, and I think maybe John though I'm not sure, is that I don't think that defining Sim and Nar in terms of their products is going to change anything -- it's going to create a completely new model. Nar isn't about story-as-product, about being able to look back and say, "Hey, there was a story!" It's about having that right now. And even if there was a story, you could have been playing Sim -- and no, that's not El Dorado, it's a predictable if uncommon effect.

Ron's point throughout the Big Model essays -- one of them at least -- is that we need to emphasize process. What you want in a game is what happens in the game. That may or may not have anything to do with what you think you want to come out of the game. If you want stories in your games, you're best doing so mindfully, which entails Nar agendas. But this simply does not mean that if a story gets told the game was Nar. That's taking the model and turning it inside out.

Thanks, Chris. Your points are very much in tune with my general take on this thread topic.

Regarding likelihood of story occuring via Sim play, however, you're mis-stating my case a bit. The "monkeys fly out my butt" likelihood refers to Ouija-Board play hiding (fleeting) Narrativist input, not to Sim in general.

When Sim play uses a given story-type construction as an agreed-upon, group-appreciated feature of Exploration (many groups playing Call of Cthulhu often do this, e.g.), then the transcript (my usage) reliably features story. Simulationist play is all about confirmation, as I've written before, and if you make sure X is in there, then successful play yields X, unscathed.

I hope it's clear that in Sim play which does not include such a construction, story-as-outcome is correspondingly absent or rare.

We can debate the use of "transcript" in another thread, I think.

Best,
Ron

clehrich wrote:
My basic disagreement with Marco, and I think maybe John though I'm not sure, is that I don't think that defining Sim and Nar in terms of their products is going to change anything -- it's going to create a completely new model. Nar isn't about story-as-product, about being able to look back and say, "Hey, there was a story!" It's about having that right now. And even if there was a story, you could have been playing Sim -- and no, that's not El Dorado, it's a predictable if uncommon effect.

Hello,

Narrativist play reliably produces story-in-transcript via addressing Premise during play itself.

Some Simulationist play reliably produces story-in-transcript via various agreements or conditions that "put the story in there." Usually the "inserted story" has a fixed Theme as part of its non-negotiable features. Some of these agreements/conditions are done beforehand, some afterward, but not through addressing Premise during play itself.

That's what I've been saying for years now. Very easy. Very painless. I don't see any issues that make it hard.

Best,
Ron

At the risk of a "me too" post, I'm with Ron here.

If we're all agreed that Big Model definitions are about process and not product, and

We're all agreed that transcript (under Ron's definition) is product,

Then surely it's obvious that whether transcript does or does not contain story (or anything else) is totally irrelevant for CA examination?

And if that's the case, what is this argument about?

This is a genuine statement of confusion. I've read all the posts, and with these last few it looks to me like this discussion isn't going anywhere because it isn't about anything. If I'm wrong, please do correct me -- because I'm entirely missing the point.

clehrich wrote: If we're all agreed that Big Model definitions are about process and not product, and

We're all agreed that transcript (under Ron's definition) is product,

Then surely it's obvious that whether transcript does or does not contain story (or anything else) is totally irrelevant for CA examination?

And if that's the case, what is this argument about?

This is a genuine statement of confusion.

Story: An imaginary series of events which includes at least one protagonist, at least one conflict, and events which may be construed as a resolution of the conflict. A Story is a subset of Transcript distinguished by its thematic content. Role-playing may produce a Story regardless of which Creative Agenda is employed.

John Kim wrote:
Marco started this thread arguing exactly what you just said -- that GNS mode is not distinguished by transcript. Story is a quality of transcript (as defined in Ron's glossary), and transcript is product. He was arguing against people who claimed that Simulationism can be distinguished by story (i.e. by product). He was upholding the principle that GNS mode is not distinguished by the transcript or story.

Yes Marco, but I think its that nuance that we can now lay to rest. I fully agree that retrospectively the product of sim play is something that can rightly be termed "a story" even if one in need of significant editing. I think however that this casual term is sometimes misleading in the apparent attribution of a story-based CA to sim. I like Silmemune's construction because it does not exhibit the same conflation.

However, I do have an issue with what you've said: you talk about story as the "retrospective" product of Sim play. I don't understand that, and I think this concept is important wrt Jay's formulation.

According to the glossary, Story is found in the *Transcript* of play--a re-telling of play after the fact. Therefore, in any game wherein there can be said to be Story, it must be retrospective, whether Sim, Nar, or Gamist.

Do such scenario setups simply not occur in your experience of Sim? Alternatively, do such setups occur, but they result in different transcripts than when played out using a Nar system?

Ron Edwards wrote: Hello,

Narrativist play reliably produces story-in-transcript via addressing Premise during play itself.

Some Simulationist play reliably produces story-in-transcript via various agreements or conditions that "put the story in there." Usually the "inserted story" has a fixed Theme as part of its non-negotiable features. Some of these agreements/conditions are done beforehand, some afterward, but not through addressing Premise during play itself.

That's what I've been saying for years now. Very easy. Very painless. I don't see any issues that make it hard.

Best,
Ron

A group of supers are sent on a mission to rescue a turned Nazi scientist during WW II. His 'capture' will be of great importance to the allied war effort. Along the way of searching for him, they come across various atrocities of his (and may have to fight some). In the end, assuming they overcome the obstacles and don't abandon the mission (both of which are reasonable for the characters) they find him.

An NPC will bring up the question as to whether he should be rescued (or terminated or left to the Nazis).

1. The players agreed to play characters who would willingly go on missions for the allied command and wouldn't consider a mission to grab a turn-coat Nazi scientist to be outside of their abilites or responsibilities (i.e. they are not all playing super-medic characters).
2. That the GM did not require the players to be dogmatic (i.e. did not mandate a Super-Patriot disadvantage of some kind for all characters)
3. That the difficulty of the game (both in combat and in clues) was well judged for the group and reliably within their ability to handle.

John Kim wrote:

clehrich wrote: If we're all agreed that Big Model definitions are about process and not product, and

We're all agreed that transcript (under Ron's definition) is product,

Then surely it's obvious that whether transcript does or does not contain story (or anything else) is totally irrelevant for CA examination?

And if that's the case, what is this argument about?

This is a genuine statement of confusion.

OK, let me try summarizing, because I think that you haven't quite grasped the thread. It seems like you and Ron are supporting me and Marco, although you don't seem to realize that for some reason. The current voice of dissent is contracycle. (Apologies if I'm misrepresenting anyone here.)

Marco started this thread arguing exactly what you just said -- that GNS mode is not distinguished by transcript. Story is a quality of transcript (as defined in Ron's glossary), and transcript is product. He was arguing against people who claimed that Simulationism can be distinguished by story (i.e. by product). He was upholding the principle that GNS mode is not distinguished by the transcript or story.

contracycle wrote:
They result in different transcripts, OR they suffer other known problems. Probably. I think.

If you are playing by a Sim contract and you set up Story you run into the classice RGFA objection: the accomodation of story renders the Sim "unrealistic", as where the nominated story villain cannot be killed in the first act regardless of player action.

So what this means in practice is that in order to force play down a constrained path that will output a story in the transcript at the end, the players must be railroaded. This is all in line with prior discussion of el dorado et al.

So thats problems of play that have been much discussed already. As to the differing transcripts, this is what I mean. I have on several occassions mentioned the Hardwired supplement for CP2020 and an event which occurred in ourt playing of this product: the PC's were investigating something and in the process were photographed by an entirely innocent tourist. they spent several game hours and half a day running to ground everything there was to know about this tourist in order to rule them ourt as some sort of covert surveillance.

All of this would appear in the transcript even though it is totally unrelated to any "story" that might be going on, or even mere plot. This was a total red herring, a distraction, a dead end, which I had only introduced to keep the world alive, full of people NOT involved with the plot. If you were a reviewer reading this transcript as a book I'm sure you would find it very poor, totally irrelevant, and the kind of thing that should have been cut before it went to print.

It is my contention that Sim contains these sorts of excursions all the time, not least becuase the CA being served is Explorative, not Narrative. Therefore I certainly do not expect Sim play to produce a story transcript reliably at all, and the only way I know of to make it reliable is to railroad fearlessly.

Marco wrote:
I do see what you are stating as a common position--but I don't see the basis for it.

2. There seems to be no analogue to "the nominated story villain cannot be killed in the first act regardless of player action" in my scenario. Where do you see that coming into play?

This is a good example of players and GM's sort of missing each other but I don't see it as inherently Sim or Nar.

1. It would be perfectly acceptable Sim, for example, for the GM to say "you run a make on the tourist and discover he is exactly that--a tourist. He lives in Ohio. He's a family man."

contracycle wrote:

Marco wrote:
I do see what you are stating as a common position--but I don't see the basis for it.

Fine. At present, the common position is all I am arguing for.

Because the ultimate objective of this whole position is to come back to Sim to see HOW story can be introduced WITHOUT these sorts of problems. Thats why I do not want to talk about special cases, and am not trying to lay down an absolute rule.

Hello,

Do I sense the beginnings of a conclusion, or accord, in this thread? Holy crap.

About "story before," here's how I see it. First, let's leave out plain old railroading and other forms of pre-injected "how it turns out" which violate social contracts or reflect Incoherence. I'm talking about a nice and fun form of "story before" play, i.e. non-Narrativist, i.e. solid story as transcript.

We're playing Call of Cthulhu. We've agreed about when/where (say 1920s New England), about our characters (I'm Herbie Bletz, ace reporter), and about the letter that one of us has received from his cousin, to send us visiting a small town in Vermont. By "agreed," what I mean is that regardless of who proposed what, but that we're all good with it. Maybe the GM dictated all that stuff, maybe he didn't, whatever.

Here's my real point though - we've also agreed on something else: the "story." We will go up and check out the cousin's situation. We will pry into everything we can, fully knowledgeable (as players) that clues are seeded throughout along with red herrings and traps/risks. We will play our characters as enjoyably ignorant of the Existential Unknown and in fact are relishing how the characters' complacent 1920s can-do Americanism is going to run face-first into the Tentacled Void. By "we," I'm including the GM. He has a part to play in ensuring all this, just as we do.

The Theme is pre-established and known: "Mankind's ideals are flickering little pinpoints in a horrific, insane void." All of us are utterly complicit in bringing that theme into "narrative life."

So we do it! Rock on! We have celebrated Lovecraft as we understand it (or perhaps, which I didn't touch on, as we saw fit to modify it). To have deviated from that Theme would have violated the whole point of being there.

"Story" was already there. What we did during play was logistics, figuring out who gets killed or goes nuts first, relative to what gets learned or displayed, and how that affects the further logistics. We aren't authors so much as dialoguists and assistant directors, often adding intense and perfect details or twists in the context of the known, pre-understood story.

Again, if everyone is on board with this, it's not railroading. It's (as I understand the term) perfect Participation. The story is not authoied in play, but embellished and refined during play, as a given/fixed element of Exploration (shared imagined space).

Marco, how's that sound? Good with that? Please note how different it is from, say, a game in which we agree that the Dogs will go the Vineyard and will deal with the hassles in the towns. In that case, we have no idea what the Themes will be, only that we have problematic components colliding both in the characters and in the immediate setting. Or to use an older example of yours, a game in which we agree that we will climb up the mountain and will try to get back down. Again, in this case, we have no idea what conflicts will arise through our interactions with one another and the travails of the journey, although we are brutally committed to seeing such conflict and resolving it.

I have some comments on "story after" as well, because your paraphrase doesn't quite catch what I was trying to express, but I'd rather make sure that we're understanding one another about "story before."

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hello,

Do I sense the beginnings of a conclusion, or accord, in this thread? Holy crap.

I think there is some progress, but still some major differences with contracycle and some minor ones with Ron. To Marco -- I'd be careful of assuming that the play you describe is GNS Simulationist. I think before we can adequately discuss the examples, though, we need to agree better on terminology. I think there's a serious gap in how people are using words.

Transcript

Transcript, as I have used it, is a full accounting of the imaginary events in actual play. i.e. There is no editing, embellishing, and re-writing what happened. If there is no story during actual play, there is no story in the transcript. This conflicts with contracycle, who suggests that Sim has story only in transcript but not in actual play. If it wasn't in actual play, how can it appear in transcript? To get over the conceptual divide, I'd like to suggest three terms:

• "Game Log" is the full accounting of EVERYTHING that happened in actual play (i.e. every word spoken, at a minimum). On chat play, this would be a dump of all channels (OOC, IC, private message). • "Transcript" is a subset of game log which includes only imaginary events. A full transcript includes every word spoken in character and every word of pure description. It removes any mention of players, dice, and mechanics -- but has no editing of imaginary content. • "Re-telling" is how a player would verbally re-tell what happened in the game later, which may include editing, embellishment, and new commentary or description.

It seems to me that contracycle is referring to "re-telling". Thus, a game might not have story in actual play -- and thus not in the game log or transcript. But when re-told, a story could be made.

Story

According to the glossary "Story" by itself is a quality of transcript -- so a transcript may or may not be a story. Story is thus a product. However, the confusing usage is that "Story Now" is used to refer to a particular process. So what does the "Now" refer to? It seems to me that in Ron's usage, the time (i.e. "Before", "Now", and "After") refers to when THEME is agreed upon relative to active play session. I feel this is confusing because story includes more than just theme -- i.e. theme is one quality of story, but not the whole of it. Even by Ron's glossary definition, story is "an imaginary series of events". Yet here Ron says:

Ron Edwards wrote: The Theme is pre-established and known: "Mankind's ideals are flickering little pinpoints in a horrific, insane void." All of us are utterly complicit in bringing that theme into "narrative life."

So we do it! Rock on! We have celebrated Lovecraft as we understand it (or perhaps, which I didn't touch on, as we saw fit to modify it). To have deviated from that Theme would have violated the whole point of being there.

"Story" was already there. What we did during play was logistics, figuring out who gets killed or goes nuts first, relative to what gets learned or displayed, and how that affects the further logistics. We aren't authors so much as dialoguists and assistant directors, often adding intense and perfect details or twists in the context of the known, pre-understood story.

Hi,

This is a reply mainly to Marco's post. I knew I'd probably have to clarify this part, because it relates to a claim John made a bit ago which I didn't think hit the mark.

Yes, it's really easy to explain when we're talking about a known set of genre conventions. That's why I usually take that route.

But the very same points apply when the group is essentially generating its own genre through play as well. As long as the assumption/agreement is to confirm our fixed "stuff," then the "stuff" can be a little patchy, sketchy, or cobbled-together just as easily as it can be unified.

This is where my pastiche argument comes from. Some pastiche is pretty much imitation - like Derleth's Lovecraftian fiction. Some, on the other hand, is patchwork, sort of like "Hey, a Westward Migration pioneer drama, on Mars!!"

People are really good at working with just-introduced material as if it had been assumption all along. If the group is committed to this idea, then their techniques of introducing original or incongruous elements can still support the whole notion of Story Before. It especially works well when one person has the helm, as when a GM presents his whole-cloth setting which gives us (e.g.) samurai elves or cannibal hobbits, although it doesn't absolutely have to.

So the originality or faithfulness of the "genre material" isn't the point. The point (that makes it Sim play, and in this case, story-before) is that everyone's going into the process with the shared idea that the Story Is There, so let's take cues from one another (in some cases the GM, as he's usually at the helm) to Express It. I don't think it's surprising that GMs for groups who play this way are (a) typically always the GM and (b) plan to write their novel based on in-game events one day.

I think this puts us further in agreement, because I am not restricting Sim play to "known genre." What's absent, no matter what, is addressing Premise.

I'm also trying to keep my posts very limited to specific points, so I'll close here. Gentlemen, any fundamental issues with our impending agreement, so far? (Please quell general desires to find and pick at any niggly bits. I really really don't think that serves us right now.)

Best,
Ron

John,

Close! Very very close! Without getting into Big Ass Questions that concern any narrative-form art-form ...

1. Yeah, your "Before/During" categories work for me.

2. Let me clarify some aspects of the "After" concept. (This is what I was holding off from before.)

a) Re-telling is certainly one way to get story-after. As a lot of us have observed, people often do this through selective remembering, without even knowing that they do it.

b) However! A very common approach is also more finely-grained - the group members, often under the guidance and example of the helmsman,* do a little revising between sessions of play. This revising might involve how to describe what happened, it might involve fixing stuff that hasn't been presented yet, and it might involve retroactively inserting stuff into what "was also happening," all relative to the session that was just played.

I used to be really good at this. I think it's a core technique for the original presentation of Illusionism by Paul Elliott. You play, then you and maybe a player or two look back over the session and tweak its events a bit ... and alter your prep for the next session (and yes, you do have a prep-outline for the next five to ten sessions, pending tweaks, which you know you'll be doing) ... and maybe trade out a character for another one that fits better given a guess that a player made ... and so on.

The priority of such revision and tweaking and re-interpreting is not "no myth" ... it's specifically to guide things next time in such a way that the original thematic content (over which you feel ownership) is preserved.

This is the kind of play which earns GMs the prized sobriquet of "Amazing Story GM," and "The best GM ever," from players who are astonished that the game produces such a great, coherent, amazing story. Yet the work and attention of story-creation is going on essentially inter-session, in reaction to the decisions players make, rather than being intra-session and climactically expressed by those decisions at the time.

It's still story-after, because "after" is relative to actual play. But it's more piecemeal and dynamic (relative to the next session) than plain old re-telling after all the play is done.

How's that working?

Best,
Ron

* Hey, spoo ... I think that might be a useful term, to describe a certain role about "how well we're playing, what direction should we be going" often taken by a participant. I like it because "the GM" may or may not be the helmsman, and in many cases a GM and a non-GM may compete for that role.

Hi Ron,

I used to apply this method of play quite often. I think a crucial period of play for me was a 2 year long campaign of Feng Shui, which started out in this fashion, and drifted over to Narrativist play as I became more comfortable with adapting in play and the players became more comfortable inject and addressing premise during play itself.

By the way, your Helmsmen term is pretty much what I was aiming for with "The Ball" though I lacked the ability to clearly communicate it. Thanks for putting in clear words what I had been trying to work out for the last year or two.

Chris

I'm wondering whether we're struggling with this here because there's a sense in which "story before" is not quite possible.

Marco, your example brings to mind one of my own, a Multiverser world called Orc Rising. The core concepts in the world are that this is a post-fantasy world in which elves, dwarfs, and men are settling into the beginnings of a technologically-driven situation, magic has nearly vanished from the world, in the midst of it all the free peoples are gradually coopting the lands that are the homelands of the orcs, and enslaving that race in the name of improving them. Into this I drop my player character, who is a human from our modern world most commonly, usually with some experience in a few other worlds before he came here.

The interesting aspect is that this scenario is fraught with potential premise, but many people who play it ignore or sidestep that and stick to exploring the nature of the world. That is, Orc Rising might be considered front-loaded narrativism, but it only becomes narrativism if the players choose to engage the premise. If they ignore it, or if they explore it without really engaging it in any meaningful way (e.g., exploring how slavery impacts the lives of the orcs without addressing whether it's morally acceptable to enslave them at all--the sociological approach), then they're going to play as simulationists.

So, too, with your scenario, you've created potential premise. If your players find the premise engaging, they become narrativists. If they find the situation interesting without engaging the premise, they become simulationists. (Both relative to play in this instance.)

You can't really frontload story in the same way. You can do so if your group is using illusionism, participationism, or trailblazing (each in a different way), but in those cases narrativism is precluded because the game is about producing the referee's story, thus not about the premise. In bass playing, you can frontload a premise and let the players trigger it. That does not guarantee that the players will engage your premise; further, it is a far cry from frontloading a story.

At least, that's what I'm seeing here.

--M. J. Young

I have been thinking about this pretty deeply and my thoughts are very much in line with MJ's.

Here is what I have come up with.

I read and re-read Ron's post (on Story Before--I understand, I think, Story After and consider it a different thing--although one I fully accept as real and responsible for some confusion about what may be meant by Story).

Here is what I came back to:

So the originality or faithfulness of the "genre material" isn't the point. The point (that makes it Sim play, and in this case, story-before) is that everyone's going into the process with the shared idea that the Story Is There, so let's take cues from one another (in some cases the GM, as he's usually at the helm) to Express It. I don't think it's surprising that GMs for groups who play this way are (a) typically always the GM and (b) plan to write their novel based on in-game events one day.

Hello,

In this type of "story is there already" play (which you rightly identify as theme is there already), I am suggesting that the group will arrive at a fixed theme as a "lodestone" for play very early in the process. Either one piece of the many influences will be chosen as the guiding piece (e.g. our "western in space" is expected to be, thematically, a western, specifically a western of a specific kind and very familiar theme), or people will look to the helmsman, if present, for guidelines about what to do when bombarded with all this multi-genre material.

In the latter case, GMs who are skilled in helming in this fashion will ask lots of leading questions, will covertly guide choices by asking "are you sure" when the person isn't supposed to do what they've just announced, and similar stuff.

Remember, I'm not talking about dysfunctional play. The group is complicit with these approaches and with finding their feet (as it feels to them) in knowing what theme we're all going to reinforce.

As you suggest, is this kind of play subject to multiple forms of breakdown? Sure, for all the reasons you describe. I consider it pretty delicate, as far as approaches go. For instance, get one undercover Narrativist in there and you'll see blood spilled and names taken. The other sort of one-genre play is far more reliable. But this sort is at least possible.

Best,
Ron

Hey Ron,

I'm not sure if you were responding to me--but my point was that I thought that in a scenario like mine or MJ's (one with Premise that would support Nar play) then Theme is not there already and therefore it doesn't make sense to call the scenario Story-Before.

I'm not sure if that was clear--I understand what you are saying about a specific type of game, and I'm good with that. But I think it's possible to have Sim that isn't Story-Before or Story-After, as MJ described.

-Marco

Ron Edwards wrote: But the very same points apply when the group is essentially generating its own genre through play as well. As long as the assumption/agreement is to confirm our fixed "stuff," then the "stuff" can be a little patchy, sketchy, or cobbled-together just as easily as it can be unified.

This is where my pastiche argument comes from. Some pastiche is pretty much imitation - like Derleth's Lovecraftian fiction. Some, on the other hand, is patchwork, sort of like "Hey, a Westward Migration pioneer drama, on Mars!!"

People are really good at working with just-introduced material as if it had been assumption all along. If the group is committed to this idea, then their techniques of introducing original or incongruous elements can still support the whole notion of Story Before.

Marco wrote: I'm not sure if you were responding to me--but my point was that I thought that in a scenario like mine or MJ's (one with Premise that would support Nar play) then Theme is not there already and therefore it doesn't make sense to call the scenario Story-Before.

I'm not sure if that was clear--I understand what you are saying about a specific type of game, and I'm good with that. But I think it's possible to have Sim that isn't Story-Before or Story-After, as MJ described.

John Kim wrote:
If it isn't Story-Before or Story-After, what criteria make you say it's Sim? It seems to me that yours and M.J.'s examples are describing games which are liable to be Narrativist. It seems to me that you are correct that your scenario has no pre-determined theme. Going by the definition, if a story is found in the Transcript, then it is Story Now and hence Narrativist.

The key to Narrativist Premises is that they are moral or ethical questions that engage the players' interest.

Substitute Premise for theme, and theme for the "something," and that's just about right. I especially like the implied causality: (1) the actions of the players (2) teach the players something, which becomes non-circular when play actually addresses Premise.

That's why Feng Shui and Hong Kong Action Theater are hard-core, no-ambiguity Simulationist-facilitating games including their explicit homage to specific cinematic stories, and that's why The Dying Earth facilitates Narrativist play, because its Situations are loaded with the requirement for satirical, judgmental input on the part of the players.

Hello,

Now it's all getting weird again.

Marco, tons of Sim play isn't Story Before, Story After, or Story Now. I think you're getting really focused on "well, we have a story, so what kind of play was it?" ... when my emphasis would be "well, we played in a particular kind of way, so did we get a story?" (with a variety of possible answers if the "way" wasn't Narrativist)

If you say "Story Before and Story After" are Simulationism, then you're all backwards. Start with Simulationist play, period - so no addressing Premise. Now see if there's a story that came out of it. Then look for any of dozens of Techniques-combinations that encouraged that to occur. You may find none at all ("monkeys flew out my butt"). You may find really obvious Story After or Story Before. You may find more subtle things. Whatever.

The key is addressing Premise; if it's absent, then Sim (positing no Gamist play either). Or if that's too negative for you, then find some version of "celebration" or "confirmation of in/out" or perhaps "bricolage" that makes you more comfortable with something to look for - as the priority of play.

John, we simply disagree about Story Now as a term. I think the disagreement lies in the concept of the "Now," which is more than just "during play." It's during the key social and creative interactions and decisions of play. You know that's what I always focus on when we discuss Creative Agenda in the Actual Play forum.

That's why what I just described to Marco isn't Story Now. None of those key interactions occur until the group nails down Theme through various subtle means, even if play is occurring. Once it's nailed down, then the key interactions may occur, and plain old Solid-Sim Participation is under way, in our multi-genre Explorative context. You guys are getting a little too hung up on "Before" as meaning "Before anything."

As usual when I interact with the two of you on-line, I very quickly get aggravated with someone proposes a special case, then some secondary feature of that special case gets highlighted, then some "but/if" comment about a detail of that secondary feature gets emphasized, and then whatever gets said about that is suddenly bumped up to apply to the whole damn topic. I'd like a little help from both of you in avoiding that tendency.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

My man, and I mean this sincerely: I'm am really and truly not trying to aggravate you. There are some things we do disagree on--yes, but, I think, not this--and I'm sure not trying to annoy you.

John asked me how if Sim Play wasn't Story-Before or Story-After we could know it's still Sim.

My answer was: "'cause the players aren't engaged with the premise."

I think that's like, completely what you said. In fact, I think that's right in line with what you said here:

I think the disagreement lies in the concept of the "Now," which is more than just "during play."

Hey,

Agreement! I'm with you on all counts in that post, Marco.

The funny thing is, looking back over the thread, I'm generally agreeing most often with Gareth (contracycle) in terms of the basic points on an individual basis.

I hope that goes to show that we're all working on articulating the same issue to one another rather than really disagreeing, but life rarely holds out a "group hug solution" to an intellectual problem, so I'm only cautiously optimistic.

Best,
Ron

OK, so I guess I missed here on Ron's intended meaning of "Story Before". So what I get of your position, Ron, is:

1) A story can be generated as a product of play (i.e. the true, unedited transcript is a story), and yet that play is not characterized by any of "Story Before", "Story Now", or "Story After".

2) "Story Before" can be occurring even though there is no decision prior to play on what the theme is. i.e. The group can dynamically create theme during the act of play, and yet the process is still "Story Before".

Neither of these were clear to me before -- probably because the term "Story Before" isn't well documented. (It doesn't appear in your Simulationism essay, your Narrativism essay, or your glossary.)

Ron Edwards wrote: The funny thing is, looking back over the thread, I'm generally agreeing most often with Gareth (contracycle) in terms of the basic points on an individual basis.

contracycle wrote:

Marco wrote: What I was refering to was (Ron's) Narrativism Essay:
...
(Emphasis in the original)

Fine. That was the state-of-the-art then. I am proposing that in the light of new development the state of the art is now different. I may of course be wrong. I still largely agree that the CA is not explicit in the transcript, but am suggesting that by dispersing some of the multiple senses of story we should be able to distinguish sequence-of-events story from premise-addressing story. While we were/are treating story as an indivisible whole that was virtually impossible to do or discuss.

Hi John,

I was definitely referring to other points made by Gareth, not this one. However, in reference to this particular interaction, it was not clear to me throughout the discussion when people may have been using different readings of the word "transcript," perhaps including interactions among the real people rather than just a recounting of the fictional events. Also, this particular exchange was written (in my experience of the thread) in the heat of rather murky debate, so frankly, just what point was being made relative to what isn't clear to me.

To be absolutely clear: I stand by my claim in the Narrativism essay that transcript (as I define it there) yields no clues to CA. Hell, it doesn't even yield clues as to who was a player-character, or when resolution systems were employed, or anything about play.

I do suggest, as I did earlier in this thread, that if we were to take a whole bucket of game-transcripts to compare, and if we knew which ones were played Gamist, Narrativist, Simulationist, and "other," then the Narrativist sample would feature proportionately more stories. That's a very different sort of claim.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote:
I was definitely referring to other points made by Gareth, not this one. However, in reference to this particular interaction, it was not clear to me throughout the discussion when people may have been using different readings of the word "transcript," perhaps including interactions among the real people rather than just a recounting of the fictional events. Also, this particular exchange was written (in my experience of the thread) in the heat of rather murky debate, so frankly, just what point was being made relative to what isn't clear to me.

Hiya,

Gareth, I'm definitely with you that the Glossary is not set in stone.

I also think that "story" will necessarily crop up in discussing any role-playing, in a million ways, even if it's merely to establish (in the most minimal case) that there isn't one.

Maybe it's time to close this thread. I like these last couple pages, but making new and very focused sub-threads seems like the most useful option. Marco, let me know if you think that's not called for, or whatever.

Best,
Ron

Sure, I'm pretty good with closing it (unless, you know, John has somewhere else to go).
-Marco