Introduction

Shirley Hawthorn has little contact with her two sisters and even less with her dying father, who was overly critical and quite unsympathetic to her during her youth. Now, as his end is near, she decides, after much hesitation, to visit him. The conversation quickly becomes accusatory, but her father concedes all Shirley's points and confesses that he was foolish. He begs for her forgiveness, so he can die a happy man. Her answer: "No. I cannot forgive you."

This happened in my game last monday. (We were indeed playing the Sorcerer scenario "The Forbidden Tome", with one of the player characters being a sister of Ashley and Michele.) There were no Simulationist reasons to have the scene end this way, nor did it give a Gamist advantage in any way. The player's choice not to have Shirley forgive her father, not even to have her lie about forgiving him in order to grant him a happy death, was - I am inclined to say - narrativist.

But what has been expressed by making that decision? Is the player claiming something that has validity outside of the SIS, and if so, what is it? Is narrativist play partly a search for truth, and if so, what kind of truth?


Premise and Theme in Ron's essay

My starting point will be Ron's essay on Narrativism. "Premise" is defined as a problematic issue (or question) 'addressed' during play. This addressing creates theme. I quote:

Stories are not created by running some kind of linear-cause program, but rather are brutally judgmental statements upon the THIS, as an idea or a way of being. That judgment is enacted or exemplified in the resolution of the conflict, and a conviction that is proved to us (as Egri says), constitutes theme.

The author's conviction is missing. Until he takes sides, there is no play.

What about "People make these sorts of decisions, for good and sound reasons. People also make the opposite decision, for good and sound reasons. Isn't that cool and tragic and miserable and wonderful? Isn't it human?" Is that part of your third option, because people haven't resolved their stance on the question, even though they have answered it in one particular case?

But judgements imply truth; that is, I can only judge that A is the answer to B if I think that A is true.

Hi Victor -

I say "this is what I want this guy to do right here", where the situation is thematically laden, which is as I see it one core kind of moment of Narrativist empowerment.

That is different from "this is what this guy would do, right here, based on my understanding of him". That's what you're calling, probably rightly, 'Simulationist' thinking, and in it the player is engaged in the exploratory/theoretical question about what his avatar would do rather than the personal question about what I, the player, the agent who drives the character along, wants him to do.

But it is likewise not akin to saying "the way this guy acts in this situation is the way I would really act in this situation", let alone the Kantian "this is the way all people in relevantly similar circumstances ought to act in this situation". It is like saying that in the real world, but it is hypothetical, imaginary.

Now, there are some cases where we own what we want our guy to do, are rendering a personal moral judgment, and others where we don't, but that's the judgment we want him to make right there, even when we might personally think it's wrong. This is extremely interesting psychologically; when we behave this way in our real lives, taking on the 'player' and 'character' roles ourselves, it's the more general case of what classical philosophers called akrasia, and what Freud called neurosis. Conflict of desires, perhaps. "Why did you want your guy to do that if it's not what you would have done?" Great question for self-understanding. We want this sort of thing all the time though.

The basis of our character's judgment is our own desire for that judgment to be made in the 'world of the story'. Such a judgment might be coming from our own moral constellation, but it might also be coming from some backwater of our psyche that we don't fully own or endorse, but want to get out and look at some more. That's part of what art's all about, letting us get out and look at stuff we don't necessarily fully own, or might be thinking about owning but aren't sure, or really do own maybe but can't admit it to ourself - the process of confronting ourself with the full broad spectrum of our values, desires, conflicts.

The real judgment is our judgment about what we want to happen in the game. This is based on our own psyche, but is also make-believe. The character's action in effect comes down on one side or the other (or both perhaps) of a thematically laden question, and so in that sense can be said to express a moral judgment. But it's not a real-life situation we're facing. We make the judgment "I want it to be part of this make-believe that this character comes down on this side of this morally loaded issue." This connects back to us in all kinds of interesting ways, to be sure, but it's not the same as "I in my particular circumstances come down on this side of this issue" or "Every rational person..."

Sometimes people compare Narrativist roleplaying to the moral equivalent of lion cubs play-fighting around here. Someone in one thread said something like, "I'm probably only going to have a half-dozen really meaningful moral decisions in my life, and by exploring my values through role-playing I think I'm more likely to know myself better and make the right one when the time comes."

You learn something about yourself by deciding to have your character make a certain judgment, but it's not that you necessarily endorse what the character does. It's that something in you wanted the character to do that in that context. That tells you something about what you value, or what you think you might value, or what you're wondering whether you value, or something you thought you valued but now that you actually saw it work out in make-believe you're not so sure any more, etc.

I'm not fully satisfied with the way I put things here but I'm out of time to edit my comments for today.

Just for clarification, the Darby Definition of a premise is a human interest question that can only be asked in the general and answered in the particular.

"Is it right to betray a friend to save a community? In this case, yes/no"

The thing is, very often, the player will choose the character to take what they believe is the wrong decision, in order to illustrate that it's wrong, that in making this call, the character is flawed. The player stands in judgement over the character. So while the actions of the character may be influenced, even dictated, by what may be small-s simulationist concerns (if Shirley forgave her father now, it would overturn all the character work that has been done before, it would break the SiS and be rejected by all the other players), that need not be a problem. The concern for the player is "What should she do, what would she do, and how do I judge the consequences of the difference between the two?". IN subsequent play, the actions of the player in manipulating the life of the character will reflect their judgement on the character.

Victor, this doesn't quite fall into any of the three categories at the end of you original post;

1. While the action is simulationist, in rendering judgement on the actions of the character, and focussing on premise rich situations, the play as a whole is narrativist
2. The character is not a moral agent of the player, or at least need not be.
3. Judgements are made, by the player on the actions of their own character.

Thanks for the replies. I'll frist answer Tony, Andrew and Pete, then tackle Sean's reply in a different post.

Tony

Once you speak about good and sound reasons, I take it that that is a judgement. You're saying: "Look, person A chooses to do B in situation C, and it's so right for him to do so. And look, person D chooses to do the exact opposite, and it too is so very right." And that means that you are saying: "There's no answer to this dilemma, but depending on who is facing it there are all these good and human choices." This is a judgement. I think it falls partly - predominantly - in my first, and partly in my second category. It's a descriptive judgement about human nature in so far as the player recognises that some people make the one choice for these and these reason, and other people make the other choice for other reasons. There is 'simulationist thinking' behind this, which influences what we make the different characters do.

But at the same time, the player is condoning both lines of reasoning, both ways of acting, and celebrating the tragic diversity of human nature. I'm not sure how that translates into actual decision during play, how this judgement is manifested in what you make your character do. Maybe it doesn't? What do you think?


Andrew

Andrew, I'm talking about judgements made by the players, not judgements made by the characters. Sure, you can have your characters make judgements which with you do not agree all the time. But I am trying to find out what kind of judgements - if any - the narrativist player makes when playing. And it is conceptually incoherent to claim that a player makes a judgement with which he himself doesn't agree: you can't judge that A while believing that not-A, I'd say. Judgement implies believe; judgement simply is asserted belief.


Pete

I like the Darby-definition a lot. It is why fiction may be a better vehicle for ethical knowledge than philosophy is. It is why we engage in story telling to answer these questions, instead of engaging in philosophy to do so.

Now, I'm not quite sure what your main point is, so please correct me if I'm reading you wrongly. My first reading is: "sometimes, what is important are not the actions of the character, but the judgement of the player about those actions - which is not expressed in play". In this case, the judgement is in an important sense not part of the game, and I would subsume this case under my case 3. The players are producing a morally engaging text, which they might talk about afterwards, but which does not in itself reflect the judgements of the players.

My second reading, which is probably closer to what you are saying, is: "sometimes, what is important are not the actions of the character, but the judgemenet of the player as expressed by the consequences of the actions he reveals in subsequent narration". In this case, the judgement simply happens later. It becomes apparent only as the game progresses and the sorcerer's choice to bind the demon to save his girlfriend is seen to lead to both his own and his girlfriend's destruction. That is judgement in action: the player reveals his thoughts, and the text expresses them. ("Text" meaning something like "transcript".)

Now, there are two options. This judgement is either descriptive: "this is what would happen", or normative: "this is the just result of such actions, it is the character's desert". So in the first case, the judgement might be "death is stronger than love, and attempts to cheat death in the name of love will fail". In the second case, it might be "one should accept one's fate and not try and cheat death". These two cases map more or less onto my case 1 and 2.

Except for the rather important fact that in the first case, the player is judging not human nature, but the consequences of human nature. And in the second case, his voice of moral judgement is not the character (as it might be in Dogs in the Vineyard), but rather the fictional Universe which gives the characters what they deserve (as could be easily the case in a game of Sorcerer).

Do you think we're getting anywhere along these lines?

Victor, I think you've misunderstood me. I'm saying "Person A can make choice B for good and proper reasons, and Person A can also make choice C for good and proper reasons. Now we're going to have them actually choose one. Isn't that right, and true, and human?"

Does that fit with your theory somewhere?

Victor Gijsbers wrote: I have been arguing that the player's decisions have been governed by the internal logic of the character, something normally associated with simulationism. But since the internal logic of the characters is meant to reflect the human condition, insights about the character are insights into human nature, in a way that "my character is a dwarf, so he doesn't listen to the goblin's plea for mercy" is not an insight into human nature.

Victor Gijsbers wrote: I have tried to argue that there are three ways to answer the question "what judgements does a narrativist roleplayer make when he adresses the premise?".

1. He makes descriptive judgements about human nature / the human condition. This involves what I have deemed it right to dub 'simulationist thinking', which is transformed into narrativist theme by its claim to universality.

2. He makes normative judgements. This involves the character being an extension of the player, a moral representation of the player.

3. He need not make any judgements at all, but can focus on asking the premise again and again without answering it - and still be a narrativist roleplayer.

Victor Gijsbers wrote:
Pete

I like the Darby-definition a lot. It is why fiction may be a better vehicle for ethical knowledge than philosophy is. It is why we engage in story telling to answer these questions, instead of engaging in philosophy to do so.

Now, I'm not quite sure what your main point is, so please correct me if I'm reading you wrongly. My first reading is: "sometimes, what is important are not the actions of the character, but the judgement of the player about those actions - which is not expressed in play". In this case, the judgement is in an important sense not part of the game, and I would subsume this case under my case 3. The players are producing a morally engaging text, which they might talk about afterwards, but which does not in itself reflect the judgements of the players.

My second reading, which is probably closer to what you are saying, is: "sometimes, what is important are not the actions of the character, but the judgemenet of the player as expressed by the consequences of the actions he reveals in subsequent narration". In this case, the judgement simply happens later. It becomes apparent only as the game progresses and the sorcerer's choice to bind the demon to save his girlfriend is seen to lead to both his own and his girlfriend's destruction. That is judgement in action: the player reveals his thoughts, and the text expresses them. ("Text" meaning something like "transcript".)

Now, there are two options. This judgement is either descriptive: "this is what would happen", or normative: "this is the just result of such actions, it is the character's desert". So in the first case, the judgement might be "death is stronger than love, and attempts to cheat death in the name of love will fail". In the second case, it might be "one should accept one's fate and not try and cheat death". These two cases map more or less onto my case 1 and 2.

Except for the rather important fact that in the first case, the player is judging not human nature, but the consequences of human nature. And in the second case, his voice of moral judgement is not the character (as it might be in Dogs in the Vineyard), but rather the fictional Universe which gives the characters what they deserve (as could be easily the case in a game of Sorcerer).

Do you think we're getting anywhere along these lines?

Heya,

Tony wrote:

Victor, I think you've misunderstood me. I'm saying "Person A can make choice B for good and proper reasons, and Person A can also make choice C for good and proper reasons. Now we're going to have them actually choose one. Isn't that right, and true, and human?"

Judgment in terms of "what is possible?" or judgment in terms of "what is right?"

Because if it's the first then judgment and choice are intertwined by separate variables: I can judge that the character can either forgive or not forgive, in this situation, and that both are valid options. Which doesn't imply that I've chosen either.

But if it's the moral thing then judgment is a subset of choice: Making a judgment is always making a choice, but making a choice is not always making a judgment.

I think my example is judging (and appreciating) that there are multiple things the character could and would do, choosing one of those things, and not necessarily judging whether it's right in any way whatsoever.

I think we may need some temporary vocabulary, as tools for this discussion.

One possibility in favour of the third case: doubt.

Doubt certainly is an important part of human nature and thus exploring doubt can be a prime subject in Nar play. A character in doubt might not experience the consequences of either choice (he might even be used as a vehicle to show the cruelty of having to make this choice), but will be faced with the consequences of his doubt and therewith awaiting nature.

One might argue though, that in terms of the player's choices, doubt is yet an other choice, just as the "real" ones.

Ok, so what we are looking for is an answer to the question: what kinds of judgement, if any, are typical of Narrativist play? Interestingly, the intuitions seem to diverge, which may mean that it is possible to divide narrativist play into a number of interesting subsets that are facilitated by different types of game design. Of course, it may also mean that some of us are confused - that's what we're here to find out. My first post should be read as merely a preliminary attempt to map the field, not as a 'theory' I am here to defend.


Sean

You learn something about yourself by deciding to have your character make a certain judgment, but it's not that you necessarily endorse what the character does. It's that something in you wanted the character to do that in that context. That tells you something about what you value, or what you think you might value, or what you're wondering whether you value, or something you thought you valued but now that you actually saw it work out in make-believe you're not so sure any more, etc.

Victor Gijsbers wrote: One might counter that the part of the judgement that does the work is the reference to a morally loaded issue. But this too cannot be the case, for one can identify a moral issue and make a judgement about which side one wants one's character to come down on based on 'simulationist' or 'gamist' criteria. "O, my paladin would never kill an unarmed foe, even if there is a chance he might escape and warn the guards. It's against his code." "O no, I'm not going to kill this unarmed foe, for then I would have an alignment change and that costs XP!" So merely having a choice be about a moral issue is not characteristic of narrativist play. As I already argued, adding that the player choses based on what he wants to happen in the SIS is, well, almost tautological and therefore not characteristic of narrativist play either.

Heya,

I, like you Vic, am here to see what we can discover or learn. I applaude your latest post and I really dig your palladin example.

One thing I'd like to focus on real quick is the fact that Ron used the word "brutal" to describe the kind of judgements players make. I'd like to apply that same word to choice. The choices made in a Nar game must be brutal as well. To me that means costly. They must cost things like: a chance to make that same choice twice, character currency, metagame currency, reversal of character advancement, loss of screen time and so on. Rewards in the game should cover the same fields as well. The important thing is that each significant judgement/choice both costs and rewards the player. That makes it brutal (systemwise anyway).

And I think the responsibility for that falls on both the designer and the GM.

Peace,

-Troy

This is a very enligthening thread to me, helping me to define better what Narrativism really is (I think I sometimes mix it up with types of Sim). Great job Victor & al. ;)

Victor Gijsbers wrote: But the kind of judgement that could distinguish narrativist play as you describe it, is the kind that takes the form "if the story were to continue with A, that would strike a chord with something deep within me". Or, dare I say it?, these judgements take the form "if the story were to continue with A, that would really allow me to explore this interesting, half-hidden part of my psyche". Would you agree with this analysis? For if you do, we have reached a strange result: there are modes of narrativist play where Exploration is king... (And that is generally thought to be the defining characteristic of Simulationism.)

And furthermore, this kind of narrativism would have nothing to do with judgements of the kind Egri speaks about, for we do not take sides.

(I'm sorry for answering people in this piece-meal way. I just don't have enough time to keep up with all your thought provoking ideas and questions!)


Tony

Sorry, I indeed misunderstood you. Before I try and connect the situation you describe with what I've been saying in this topic, I need to ask for a little clarification. How does one show, in play, that a character can do both A and B for good reasons? Does that involve internal monologues where the character agonises about the choice and gives reasons for both sides?

Anyway, I'd say that it involves a normative judgement: both courses of action which are considered can be chosen for good reasons. But I think it would be hard to understand this judgement as an answer to a premise - unless the premise is something like "Is there always one single right action?", which seems pretty far-fetched. How do you see this? If play revolves around the premise "Is justice more important than love?", and you show somehow that both justice and love can be chosen for very good reasons, even by the same person in the same situation - is that then an answer to the premise? Are you taking a stance in the Egri way? Or is something more subtle going on?


John

I'm very much aware that my examples of Simulationist play have all been examples of bad, shallow Simulationist play. I don't want to suggest that Simulationist play is always, or even typically, of such a shallow type. I think your example serves as a veyr good illustration of deep, interesting Simulationist play.

As for your three options (portraying a character sympathetically, unsympathetically or in a shallow way), I do not think the correspondence with my original three options is the way you make it out to be. Your 1 and 2 both involve a moral judgement on the part of the player, and thus both map on my number 2. In addition, you stress that the moral statement is made through believably portraying a character.

This is interesting. In my original number 2 example - "playing DitV where my character is my moral avatar" - believability was not an issue, at least not explicitly. If my character comes out unbelievably, that may say a lot about the internal consistency of my moral outlook, but it does not diminish the moral import of my statements. Here, unbelievability does not lead to shallowness.

What you point out is that generally - especially in written fiction, but probably also in roleplaying - the choices of the character are not supposed to be the choices of the player. In such a case, the humanity of the character, that which makes him or her an interesting character in the first plavce, must be established by portraying him or her in a believable way. Thus, an element of 'Simulationist thinking' enters the picture, which is absolutely essential to exploring human issues in a meaningful way.

Now my question is: must the player take a stance in order for this exploration to count as narrativism? You distinguish between sympathetic and unsympathetic portrayal, but it seems to me that there is also such a thing as neutral (or ambiguous) portrayal. We do not have to take a stance. Can we not do this and still be a narrativist? The result of play, I submit, will still be a thematically loaded narrative which was co-authored by the players. Is that enough?

What status do you claim for your number 3, when a shallow tale is used to comment on other narratives? Is that narrativism? (It doesn't seem to be Gamism or Simulationism, but I don't feel very comfortable with classifying it as Narrativism either.)

Victor Gijsbers wrote: How does one show, in play, that a character can do both A and B for good reasons?

Victor Gijsbers wrote: If play revolves around the premise "Is justice more important than love?", and you show somehow that both justice and love can be chosen for very good reasons, even by the same person in the same situation - is that then an answer to the premise?

TonyLB wrote: Why is showing it important?

Yes, a very particular, specific answer to the premise. It is an answer, but makes no claim to being the answer, even for this person, this situation. It answers the question without preventing you from asking it again. Which may well mean that I'm not answering it in the Egri way. But since Egri isn't one of my players....

Not really. You're asking a question that no individual human action could possibly answer, right?

"Is justice more important than love" is a question that only God can answer. "Is justice more important than love to you, in your life" is a question that individual human actions can address.

So if you want to address the God-questons then, yeah, there is no answer (in the context of human action). But if you ask human-centric questions ("What will you do for power?" "Power is fun, but do you deserve it?" "Will you choose mercy for sinners over justice for the virtuous?") then you necessarily have lots of different answers, because of the continuous procession of "You"... "You today", "You tomorrow", "You after humiliation", "You in love", etc.

Heya,

I like the point that only God could answer the broad premise questions that we sometimes throw out. Some of these questions are too big or too nuanced for one person to answer difinitively for all mankind. But correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most of the premises Egri uses statements instead of questions?

Tony Wrote:

So if you want to address the God-questons then, yeah, there is no answer (in the context of human action). But if you ask human-centric questions ("What will you do for power?" "Power is fun, but do you deserve it?" "Will you choose mercy for sinners over justice for the virtuous?") then you necessarily have lots of different answers, because of the continuous procession of "You"... "You today", "You tomorrow", "You after humiliation", "You in love", etc.

I'm trying to find evidence for the suspicion I have that Egri style premise answering is only a subset of narrativism, not the whole of narrativism. Your experience and mine seem to agree on this.

Troy, I don't understand what you mean by the "broad human context." Can you give examples from play?

Heya,

I was just re-echoing what you said when you wrote:

"Is justice more important than love" is a question that only God can answer. "Is justice more important than love to you, in your life" is a question that individual human actions can address.

Okay then. I guess we're in agreement. I certainly think that the practical questions asked should be ones that the players can, through their characters, answer immediately and specifically.

Yes, we are in agreement.

Victor Gijsbers wrote:

TonyLB wrote: Why is showing it important?

Showing it is the only way to incorporate it in your game, isn't it? You can't claim to have shown, through play, that a person could do both A and B if possibility B never comes up in play. (Unless you tell the other players 'out of narration', as it were, that B was also a good possibility.)

I think doubt and struggle are wonderful tools to show a player dilemma by means of a character (to make it his dilemma as well). This has one interesting consequence:

This way of "showing" could be nicely classified sim as well, because doubt etc are perfectly natural reactions when faced with an important dilemma. So why classify the situation as either sim or nar? I think claiming it for one case is simply injust to the other. Is it a bad thing to speak of hybrid agendas? (Or is it just an oversimplified PoV?)

I believe the difference has to be made depending on whether we're having a personal dilemma (or at least showing personnel interest in that dilemma), or if it's a character dilemma.
The first one is out ouf the SIS, the second is fully within. Thus I'd call the former Narrativist and the latter Simulationnist.

I could perfectly imagine someone interested in both levels of dilemma simultaneously. I don't know enough of Hybrids to make a call on that situation though.

Then again, let's not forget that Nar and Sim are juste convenient classifications, and that there is a continuous spectrum of games spanning from Nar to Sim.

I guess a player interested with the Narrativist aspect of that issue will get along fairly well with the Simulationnist guy.

Or am I completely forgetting something?

Artanis wrote: Then again, let's not forget that Nar and Sim are juste convenient classifications, and that there is a continuous spectrum of games spanning from Nar to Sim.