For those following the series, Places to Go, People to Be has released the next issue, containing the second of the theory series, Theory 101: The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast. This one tackles that apparent contradiction in rule books, that the referee controls "the story" and the players control the main characters in the story, using it as a springboard for the four identified referee styles (Illusionism, Participationism, Trailblazing, and Bass Playing).

I'm interested in any thoughts anyone has on the possibility of a fifth style. I don't feel that these four are logically exclusive, but I can't find the gap where another fits. To summarize them briefly here:

• In Illusionism, the referee seizes all credibility by fiat and so tells his story.• In Participationism, the players cede all credibility to the referee so that he can tell his story.• In Trailblazing, the referee creates his story and lays out the clues, and under the social contract the players are committed to discovering and telling the referee's story.• In Bass Playing, the referee creates the starting point for the story, and then responds so as to allow the players to create the story.

As I say, I don't feel that these are a logically complete set of possibilities, but I'm at a loss for where the gaps are.

Incidentally, I want to thank those who provided post-publication comments on Theory 101: System and the Shared Imagined Space. As it currently stands, the corrections and clarifications will be collected and published subsequent to the appearance of the third, still pending, article, Theory 101: Creative Agenda. If anyone has any comments or corrections on this one, feel free to contact me here or by e-mail.

Thank you for your thoughts.

--M. J. Young

I might just be tired, but Participationism and Trailblazing (as defined here) seem awfully close to each other. In both, the social contract is designed to let the GM tell his story.

It's like the difference between walking a visible trail to get across the valley (participationism), versus being given a set of orienteering directions and a compass, with instructions to find your way across the valley. You're still going through the same valley, and you'll still end up in the same place at the end.

M. J. Young wrote: I'm interested in any thoughts anyone has on the possibility of a fifth style. I don't feel that these four are logically exclusive, but I can't find the gap where another fits. To summarize them briefly here:

• In Illusionism, the referee seizes all credibility by fiat and so tells his story.• In Participationism, the players cede all credibility to the referee so that he can tell his story.• In Trailblazing, the referee creates his story and lays out the clues, and under the social contract the players are committed to discovering and telling the referee's story.• In Bass Playing, the referee creates the starting point for the story, and then responds so as to allow the players to create the story.

The division seems a bit off to me, specifically in terms of Trailblazing. The two variables at work here seem to be "who controls the story" and "whether the players are aware" of this. That gives four play styles, but they don't match up with the four descriptions you have. I'd break them down something like this:

GM-Controlled, Players Unaware: Illusionism
GM-Controlled, Players Aware: Participationism
Player-Controlled, Players Unaware: ???
Player-Controlled, Players Aware: Bass Playing

Trailblazing seems to just be a technique that can be used in either Illusionism or Participationism to me.

I don't have a name for the missing third style, but it should be as similar to Bass Playing as Illusionism is to Participationism. Bass Playing can work with or without the players' awareness, which is why I think that needs to be split up.

Andrew Morris wrote:
GM-Controlled, Players Unaware: Illusionism
GM-Controlled, Players Aware: Participationism
Player-Controlled, Players Unaware: ???
Player-Controlled, Players Aware: Bass Playing

Andrew Morris wrote: The division seems a bit off to me, specifically in terms of Trailblazing. The two variables at work here seem to be "who controls the story" and "whether the players are aware" of this. That gives four play styles, but they don't match up with the four descriptions you have. I'd break them down something like this:

Hi, MJ.

That list seems mostly to deal with Narrativist GM styles, to me. (That relates to John Kim's comment too IMO.) Furthermore, if I were, say, a reasonably competent Ouija Board GM, with non-Nar facilitating mechanics but a group with a highly idiosyncratic social contract and the ability to engage in a functional below-the-surface dialogue about where we as a group are taking the story, I wouldn't find myself in it.

Further, the list to my mind is clearly polemical in favor of the bass player, even though I'm sure you'll make your comparisons as judiciously as possible. This has the potential to alienate the many Narrativists out there who are committed to Participationism.

Also, this is a quibble, but the 'Illusionist' GM style you identify uses the technique of Illusionism, as I understand it, towards a particular end: getting the story he wants told. Qua technique though Illusionism can be used to support anyone's vision as well as anyone else's; when I played highly rigid old-school games I often used Illusionism to try to facilitate the kind of story I felt that the players wanted, not having anything in mind beyond a setting and NPCs myself.

In Bass Playing, the referee creates the starting point for the story, and then responds so as to allow the players to create the story.

Damn, do I need a Rosetta Stone. How is this distinguished from what Ron calls "intuitive continuity"? Do we need two terms?

Paul

Paul Czege wrote: Damn, do I need a Rosetta Stone. How is this distinguished from what Ron calls "intuitive continuity"? Do we need two terms?

I have another quibble, and I hope this won't be seen as excessively snarky, but I wish people would be a little more careful with language such as

As far as anyone knows, Ron Edwards was the first person to point out the problem in this idea.

ewilen wrote: I think you'll find that the idea was well understood and reasonably well pointed out back in the late 80's, if not earlier.
Thread #1
Thread #2
Robert Plamondon in particular seems to have pinned it on several occasions. Incidentally, Google's record of rec.games.frp is extremely sketchy before 1989.

Glenn Blacow wrote: In some games of this kind, there is a distinct impression that the GM has already determined the entire future of the universe, and that the player characters are just improvising the script. In more free-form versions of this game type, the flow of the story and the form of the script are decided by interactions between the GM's general outline of events and the actions of individuals within the campaign.

Much of the attraction of this kind of world comes from the fact that there is a story being told in which one's character is participating. The world has a purpose, a reason for being, independent of what the adventurers do. Living in such a world is not a little like being a character within a novel. It does require a constant effort on the part of its creator to make the universe -- whether it's a county or a continent -- rational and consistent. And as an FRP forum, it requires a cooperative group of players.

Robert Plamondon wrote:

Dennis Francis Heffernan wrote: The problem here is that what you have described isn't a story-telling game, so much as it is a bad GM.

No, it's the game. (As Dave Berry says, "I Am Not Making This Up.") Story-telling (or "fixed-script") campaigns have been around for a long time, and Torg, for one, enshrines the worst parts in the rules.

For example:

• Two adjacent sections, giving advice to the GM, are "Alter Reality" and "Fudging Die Rolls." They advise to the GM to indulge in what I consider to be heavy-handed cheating. • In a section on role-playing, the rules suggest that a player who CONSISTENTLY breaks character in order to win should be penalized. (One can only assume that if he paces himself it's OK.) • The section on plotting gives, in detail, how to lay out an adventure in four acts, INCLUDING THE ENDING, and that his goal is to cause the plot to be enacted as written. • The section that talks about letting the characters do what they want emphasizes, in the example, that after they've had their fun they should be put back on the main plot line.

ewilen wrote: I have another quibble, and I hope this won't be seen as excessively snarky, but I wish people would be a little more careful with language such as

As far as anyone knows, Ron Edwards was the first person to point out the problem in this idea.

But you see, "as far anyone knows" only moves the problem out one level :)

"As far as I know" would be fine, if a little un-authorial.

"Ron Edwards, the designer of Sorceror, has made addressing the problem with this idea a touchstone of his theories of roleplaying," might be a fair hack at dealing with the subject.

Anyway, you're all welcome. And I think you'll find that the threads in question also get into some of the same material we're discussing here. Also, in these threads: #3 and #4 (Which are after John started posting and, significantly, after David Berkman appeared on rec.games.frp.advocacy.)

For those who don't feel like reading those threads, what some of us were striving for at that time, with varying degrees of success, was an approach known as "world-based". I agree with John that it was rather like M.J.'s "bass playing" but not everyone would agree that a "world-based" GM should or would "bring changes when it will work for [the players]". Quite a few fans of the style were/are in favor of "letting the chips fall as they may" based on a notionally-objective conception of the "world" (SIS in Forge terms, I think).

The point is that M.J.'s "bass playing" could be interpreted to include both "reactive" and "objective" or "world-based" GMing. The former is a style where the GM basically observes the players' actions and tastes and reacts to them--so if the players believe that some detail is important, the GM actively decides to make it important (or not), and if the players' (characters') actions develop in the direction of an interesting story, the GM facilitates the creation of the story without predetermining the ending. E.g., if a good story will be produced by having the mysterious dirty-looking stranger who befriends the characters turn out to be the long-lost heir to a far off kingdom, then so be it. But if the characters get into an argument and kill him, the story might shift in a completely different direction--not only the heir, but kingdom ceases to exist. (Or rather, they never emerge from potentia.) The "world-based" GM would shy away from this sort of thing. At most, the world-based GM would guess (or ask) the players' plans at the end of each session so that he could fill in any missing details in his pre-existing outline of "everything in the universe".

Now, the "reactive" approach might be viewed as a kind of Illusionism, but it's different enough from the preplotted variety that I'd make three distinct categories out of Illusionism/participationism, World-based, and reactive refereeing.

Hey ewilen,

Welcome to the Forge!

ewilen wrote: Now, the "reactive" approach might be viewed as a kind of Illusionism, but it's different enough from the preplotted variety that I'd make three distinct categories out of Illusionism/participationism, World-based, and reactive refereeing.

Thanks for the welcome, Silmenume.

Actually, after referring back to "GNS and other matters", I'd say the reactive approach is closest to what Ron Edwards calls "intuitive continuity"--as others have noted already.

Whether it's healthy, surely depends on a number of factors.

Note that the "reactive" form can be done with or without the knowledge of the players, at least in theory.

Andrew Morris wrote:
GM-Controlled, Players Unaware: Illusionism
GM-Controlled, Players Aware: Participationism
Player-Controlled, Players Unaware: ???
Player-Controlled, Players Aware: Bass Playing

This thread bugs me a bit. Firstly, refereeing styles assumes the presence of a referee, and surely that is not a given. Second, I do not see why the word "story" appears, surely we should discuss "the action" rather than "the story".

We have seen a couple of "automated" game styles of late, in which much of the action arises from completely mechanistic processes, like Power/Evil. I think this is potentially a fifth playing style, but whether it would be a refereeing style I'm not so sure.

contracycle wrote: This thread bugs me a bit. Firstly, refereeing styles assumes the presence of a referee, and surely that is not a given. Second, I do not see why the word "story" appears, surely we should discuss "the action" rather than "the story".

1of3 wrote:

Andrew Morris wrote:
GM-Controlled, Players Unaware: Illusionism
GM-Controlled, Players Aware: Participationism
Player-Controlled, Players Unaware: ???
Player-Controlled, Players Aware: Bass Playing

Nice. I like that.

The third is like:

Player: "Hey, Mr. Garibaldi is surely the murderer."
GM: *thinking* Wow. Yeah, I'll make Garibaldi the murderer.

"Unobtrusive Listening" might be good name.

Wouldn't it be the reverse of Illusionism? Instead of the GM using Force to control the story, the players are using Force for the same purpose. As I understand it, "expectation of what play will contain" isn't part of the definition of Illusionism.

[EDITED to add:]

contracycle wrote: Firstly, refereeing styles assumes the presence of a referee, and surely that is not a given.

Marco wrote: Any game that uses dice to resolve things is certainly moving away from anyone being able to say they have complete control of the story (pretty much however that's meant).

Andrew Morris wrote: Wouldn't it be the reverse of Illusionism? Instead of the GM using Force to control the story, the players are using Force for the same purpose. As I understand it, "expectation of what play will contain" isn't part of the definition of Illusionism.

Callan, how does the GM's awareness about player control mean that they will go where he wants them to? I'm clearly not understanding you here, because this sounds like "John is driving the car, but because I'm aware of that, I decide where the car goes, since he's already going where I want." This doesn't make any sense to me. Can you clear this up?

There is another referee style I've often witnessed. I am not sure if it quite fits into the ones above.


• Combative. This is where the GM and the players fight for control of the game. The more the GM tries to railroad, the harder the players fight for freedom and the more they buck the plot, the harder the GM pulls them back into line.



This, of course, needs to be all within the bounds of the setting. Neither side is really in control for long but the story is created by a constant fight between the two. A battle of wits, if you will.

1of3 wrote: "Unobtrusive Listening" might be good name.

Andrew Morris wrote: Callan, how does the GM's awareness about player control mean that they will go where he wants them to? I'm clearly not understanding you here, because this sounds like "John is driving the car, but because I'm aware of that, I decide where the car goes, since he's already going where I want." This doesn't make any sense to me. Can you clear this up?

I think I get what you are saying, but who says it has to be that way? Why couldn't it be actual responsiveness? For example, you might have a game where the players think they are in a Trailblazing game, when the GM is actually creating the events based on the players' small talk.

The trailblazing paradigm doesn't say anything about where the GM is getting his ideas for where the trail goes, does it?

Vaxalon wrote: The trailblazing paradigm doesn't say anything about where the GM is getting his ideas for where the trail goes, does it?

"Before Play" is pretty vague.

I could trailblaze by planning the game session by session, couldn't I? Do I have to have the entire campaign, beginning to end, mapped out before session 1 in order to have a trailblazing campaign?

If so, then you're right.

If not, then you're wrong.

I've been wrong before, and I will be again, I'm sure. But I don't think that what you describe is the unnamed third style I'm talking about -- it's Trailblazing.

When you show the example of planning sessions between games, that's fine -- that could be one way Trailblazing works. One of the key points of Trailblazing, however, is that the players are simply "uncovering" what the GM has already created, and the GM has the ending planned. That's still a big jump from responding during a session to include what the players are looking for and creating the events and ending on the spot.

This might all be moot, however, since it is based on the idea that the two core elements are player awareness and who controls the story, which is howed it seemed to me. If that's not the case, then a whole different set of styles need to be identified. I'd like to hear if anyone has any thoughts on that.

It seems to me that if I use the table talk from session 10 to set up the events in session 11, that is both trailblazing AND "reverse illusionism" or whatever you want to call it.

I'd call it Echoing.

Vaxalon wrote: It seems to me that if I use the table talk from session 10 to set up the events in session 11, that is both trailblazing AND "reverse illusionism" or whatever you want to call it.

Mortaneus wrote: I'd call it Echoing.

It's trailblazing on a session level, echoing on an adventure or campaign level.

John Kim wrote: M.J., did you read my recent post on Models of Adventure Structure? It seems to me that by your definitions, location crawling, battlegrounding, timetabling, branching, and relationship mapping are all part of "bass playing" -- which is defined solely by the GM not having a predefined story complete with ending in mind. Would you agree, or is bass playing more specific and not inclusive of some of these?

Albert of Feh wrote: I might just be tired, but Participationism and Trailblazing (as defined here) seem awfully close to each other. In both, the social contract is designed to let the GM tell his story.

Andrew Morris wrote: The division seems a bit off to me, specifically in terms of Trailblazing. The two variables at work here seem to be "who controls the story" and "whether the players are aware" of this. That gives four play styles, but they don't match up with the four descriptions you have.

M.J., the name is Elliot Wilen, and you're welcome. Also, although Robert was a great contributor to r.g.frp, my real point wasn't so much to give him sole credit for coming up with the idea as to say that recognition of the tension between GM-control and player-control goes back a long way, as does the related tension over whether a story or story-structure is something that the participants want to impose on and/or get out of play.

Also, your distinction between world-based and reactive in the bass playing category is something worth pursuing, I think.

On re-reflection, I see a couple points of confusion (for me). First is the "bass-playing" term which I took as implying improvisation, as in jazz (though I really have no idea how much improv a jazz bassist does). Ron on the other hand seems to have coined the term as meaning, not improv, but setting the pace and letting the players do the improv (as if they're jazz trumpeters). That's what I get from this thread, in Ron's first post and then the first back-and-forth with John.

The second point of confusion (which I think I share with some others) is the view that your article is related to (or not related to) particular GNS modes. The reason for my confusion is the underlying premise of TITBB (that roleplaying is to be conceived in analogy to "stories"). Many people who prefer Sim (and likely Gam) would reject the premise altogether, and not worry about trying to resolve the contradiction. So even though I can see that your essay really doesn't have to do with GNS (does it?), the way it's framed tends to draw in GNS controversy.

M. J. Young wrote: Paul, I completely forgot about Intuitive Continuity (and that's from Underworld, so it's really Gareth Michael Skarka's term, yes?). I see that Ron discusses bass playing someone preliminarily earlier in that same thread you cited, and I'm not certain whether he thinks it to be the same or different. I'm inclined to think that two items in the cited post, his Relationship Map and Skarka's Intuitive Continuity, would both fall under Bass Playing, the former a technique and the latter a methodological goal which can be used in this regard. I would also include No Myth there. I'm fuzzy on what Open Play is, so can't comment on that.

M. J. Young wrote:
Oh, and Marco: any Illusionist referee who can't control the outcome of his game in the face of contrary die rolls should turn in his screens. That's child's play for a decent illusionist. I've done it myself, and I'm terrible at Illusionism.

--M. J. Young

Marco, we've been over this before, so I'll make it quick: the statement isn't absurd because it exists in the wild of the text, or something. The idea of the statement is absurd, and because the idea exists in gaming circles as a self-perpetuating meme, it causes problems as various groups interpret the absurd idea differently, each thinking they are interpreting it correctly.

It doesn't matter one whit whether or not a rulebook really, really says it to the letter just like that. The ITBB idea exists as an actual idea amongst gamers, no matter how they variously interpret that singular idea. But it is the existance of that raw idea and the various interpretations it spawns which become the problem, because the idea hides the reality underneath a trite and meaningless series of contenious and highly interpretive phrases.

Andrew Morris wrote: I think I get what you are saying, but who says it has to be that way? Why couldn't it be actual responsiveness?

Player-Controlled, Players Unaware: ???

greyorm wrote: It doesn't matter one whit whether or not a rulebook really, really says it to the letter just like that.

I'm not discussing System or mechanics design at all, just the "how to role-play" texts. Some of the following games have, in my view, very focused Creative Agenda content in contrast to these sections; other games, not listed or discussed, are comparatively muddled in procedural terms but have crystal-clear "how-to" sections. So this is entirely about the "how-to" text, nothing else.

ewilen wrote: M.J.'s article similarly references "rules" and "text". Since the problem precedes rules texts, there must be a better way to introduce the issue, just as it is unnecessary and incorrect to say that Ron was the first to point out the problem. (He was quite possibly the first to document the widespread manifestation of the problem in game texts, but that is peripheral to the actual problem, no?)

Now I'm not sure what we're disagreeing about. My point (illustrated in my first post and in John's followup) is that the specific problem of the impossible thing concept was quite well understood in gaming circles in the 80's. On the other hand, the pervasiveness of the problem before 1988 (the date of Ron's first example in Narrativism: Story Now) is far from clear. In fact, glancing quickly through Runequest II, the original Traveller, Bushido, Dragonquest, In The Labyrinth, and Universe, I was only able to find TITBB-ish text in Universe and the second edition of DQ (both from 1982)--and in those cases, I believe the interpretation is more-or-less prejudged along "Bass playing" lines by text that immediately follows. Of course, many of these and other early texts have little or no GMing advice at all, which is probably how TITBB really originated--as one of the ad hoc, GM-by-GM and group-by-group answers to the question, "How can we make roleplaying interesting once we leave the dungeon?"

So perhaps this is another point of confusion for me, and something that M.J. might fix when he revises his article. Is he talking about GMing styles (and/or social contracts) or is he critiquing bad rules text? Looking again at the article, I think he's doing a little of both, and unfortunately along the way he's making a few hasty generalizations that simply create controversy rather than advancing either point.

There is an idea floating around the role playing game world that went unchallenged for a very long time.

Rule books for many games have described an approach to play that we almost take for granted.

Yet if we were to stop and consider what it was we believed, we would almost certainly realize that it was internally contradictory, impossible on its face.

Most readers will agree that in a standard role playing game, the referee, or game master, has complete control over the story, and that the character players have complete control over their characters, who are the main characters in the story.

As far as anyone knows, Ron Edwards was the first person to point out the problem in this idea.

Probably this conflict, which has been dubbed The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast, does not appear to be a problem to you. Most gamers respond to the assertion that these texts are in direct conflict by claiming that they are not, because you must understand them in context. Every gaming group that is functional has found a means of resolving the conflict, and most gamers will happily tell you what the text really means.

ewilen wrote: Now I'm not sure what we're disagreeing about. My point (illustrated in my first post and in John's followup) is that the specific problem of the impossible thing concept was quite well understood in gaming circles in the 80's. On the other hand, the pervasiveness of the problem before 1988 (the date of Ron's first example in Narrativism: Story Now) is far from clear. In fact, glancing quickly through Runequest II, the original Traveller, Bushido, Dragonquest, In The Labyrinth, and Universe, I was only able to find TITBB-ish text in Universe and the second edition of DQ (both from 1982)--and in those cases, I believe the interpretation is more-or-less prejudged along "Bass playing" lines by text that immediately follows. Of course, many of these and other early texts have little or no GMing advice at all, which is probably how TITBB really originated--as one of the ad hoc, GM-by-GM and group-by-group answers to the question, "How can we make roleplaying interesting once we leave the dungeon?"

(I was replying to you.) Yup. Although I do think--and this is something I've learned from this conversation--it's a valid and important point that unclear or missing GMing advice can lead to multiple, wildly diverging, often-clashing, and sometimes dysfunctional styles of play. In this sense, the overall thrust of M.J.'s article, enumerating the various styles that arise from the credibility-distribution and related issues, is something that definitely should be included in a roleplaying primer (and addressed in roleplaying texts).

About "the article is focused on Forge-style theory"--I think that "TITBB", named and stated as such, is a poor way to lead the layman into the theory. In some formulations the reader is practically told, "You believe something which is silly and untrue, and now I'm going to set you straight." That would be fine if that was really the case but it's not, and the reader knows it's an unfair cop.

If the provocative hook must be retained, I'd just begin by stating the quoted part of the glossary definition, ask the reader to consider what it means when it comes to control over the story or action of a game, and then challenge him with the fact that different readers are going to give very different answers.

I'm going to thank everyone for their comments. I will be mulling over some of this, and will come back for the information when I start writing the fourth article (after the third one is published, so I have a better idea what I need to clarify).

That's not to say the thread is closed. I'm still interested in any comments on the article (or its predecessor in the series) and will follow this thread as long as new posts are made.

--M. J. Young

Actually, I am going to call this thread closed.

Continuations and further ideas should be taken to new threads.

Best,
Ron