Hey Marco,

On the Pre-Breakfast Possibilities thread, you wrote:

The Impossible Thing was (IIRC) created when there was much debate about whether non-narrativist "protagonized" forms of play were possible. I think it has been established they are.

Can you explain to me how this was established? The notion was advanced by Ron on this thread, but in my mind, pretty much failed when subjected to scrutiny. The litmus test for player character protagonism is active and ongoing investment in the emotional and intellectual endeavors of the character by the audience of other players.

El Dorado and the ImpThing, in my mind, are opposed perspectives on the same condition of dissatisfaction with a gameplay dynamic that fails to produce story.

El Dorado is the player-originated desire to concern oneself only with staying true to the character, and yet somehow from within this simulationist aesthetic produce the effect of full-blown authoring (i.e. the production of theme and the capturing of audience interest thereby). The problem here is obvious, real life isn't a story; you don't get story/theme without authoring. And no one cares as an audience about a character who isn't contributing to the production of theme. The quest for El Dorado is founded on the misguided hope that if character can just be enacted right, themes aggregate naturally.

The ImpThing, a more GM/Designer-originated hope, recognizes that someone needs to take ownership of theme if there's going to be a story. But it is founded upon the flawed belief that there is a way for the GM to manage themes that will either somehow naturally aggregate the player characters about them, or at least not compromise player ownership of character to the point of player dissatisfaction.

Paul

Hang on, this might be a lightbulb moment for me.

We have two pseudo-impossible things: TITBB and El Dorado. By my reading on the Pre-Breakfast Possibilities thread, both of these problems have the same root issue: they involve a slippage of perspective on a game or session, from momentary to "instance" (we've got to get a better term for that).

Thus:

I want the GM to have total "instance" control, and the players to have total momentary control. I want the cumulative effect to be "story-like." (TITBB)

I want there to be no aparrent "instance" control at all, and the players to have total momentary control. I want the cumulative effect to be "story-like." (El Dorado)

But in terms of perspective for interpretation, the whole process reveals its illogic:

Seen from entirely within the character's perspective, I want there to be a sense of "story." Now you're talking impossible -- but true. Here's why:

If I am going to look from entirely within the character's perspective, that is adopt a 100% momentaristic perspective, then there is no way for me to "step back" to assess the events from an instance-perspective. Thus there is no way for me to consider the events as "story" in this sense.

By this interpretation, both TITBB and El Dorado are problematic in a practical sense, not in a logical one. At a practical level, both lay claim to an absolutism of perspective in GM and/or players, but at the same time the propositions are impossible to assess from such an absolute perspective. No wonder it seems to be an impossibility!

Furthermore, the goals in both cases are going to require that someone bridge the gap. That is, if you want SOD (susp. of disbelief) or Immersive or whatever play at the momentary perpsective, but you also want there to have been a story when you look back, then someone's going to have to link the two, and it's going to help if that someone is pretty aware of this function. The trick is that the player commonly does not want to see the man behind the curtain making it happen -- in fact, will react to seeing such very negatively -- but he wants there to be such a man behind a curtain.

The myth, of course, is that it'll all happen naturally without anyone helping it. This is why everyone who tries is instantly a brilliant novelist, since that whole narrative thing is just a natural human instinct and doesn't require talent or effort of any kind....

Paul Czege wrote: Hey Marco,
The litmus test for player character protagonism is active and ongoing investment in the emotional and intellectual endeavors of the character by the audience of other players.

Paul

Hey Marco,

Check the definition of protagonism in my post to the "this thread" link above. It's from A Handbook to Literature, by C. Hugh Holman and William Harmon:

"The protagonist is the leading figure both in terms of importance in the play and in terms of ability to enlist our interest and sympathy, whether the cause is heroic or ignoble...."

The key factor really is audience engagement with the character.

Paul

Sure. In reference to established works of text or film (or oral narration). But we all know RPG's aren't like that. So where do we go from here?

It's another failed metaphore from static fiction that fails messily when applied to dynamic fiction.

Mostly when it comes up it comes up as "deprotagonized" which is vernacular for "the GM took my power away" not "the other players didn't care about my character."

So clearly it's a poor choice of words. For the record, I care little what someone else thinks of my character. I do care about my actions having a deciding result on the game.
-Marco

Also:

Real life isn't a story?

Ok: no game is "real life." (cue circular discussion until one of us changes our terms)

Story is most of the problem--when I set up situation as a GM, I am creating my story. You can argue that "it's not a story," but that won't really go anywhere. Having written stories, I know that the feel is identical (to me). If you take the word story out and replace it with more specific things:

contuning event or atmospheric patterns that would be called "themes", action building to an exicitng climax (for the audience), a decision point decided by the players, and a termination that the players say is "satisfying" are all entirely possible in the Simulationist mode. As far as I'm concerned, that's story. YMMV but it's all freaking semantics at that point. (Ron describes this as story as an outcome--something I'm cool with).

So yes, you can "create story" (in the sense that this word means anything at all--which it basically doesn't--add the as an outcome if you must) with sim-gaming. You can be emotionally involved in a character who is not contributing to a theme (just as you can be emotionally attached to a sports team).

You can get recurring patterns of events or atmosphere (which would be called theme in a written work) without taking power away from the characters or players.

It all works so long as you don't read too much into the metaphore.

-Marco

Are people saying that the key figure in a picaresque can't engage an audiences interest?

Are people also suggesting that a character couldn't be created around a theme or premise and then role-played in a simulationist manner thereby addressing the theme merely by 'being themselves?

Ian Charvill wrote: Are people saying that the key figure in a picaresque can't engage an audiences interest?

Are people also suggesting that a character couldn't be created around a theme or premise and then role-played in a simulationist manner thereby addressing the theme merely by 'being themselves?

Dude...

Sure. In reference to established works of text or film (or oral narration). But we all know RPG's aren't like that.

...my games are. The games run by Scott, and Matt, and Tom, and Danielle in our group are. When your character is having a scene, you are very much aware you have an audience. Maybe you can tell because you noticed one of the players sitting forward in his seat when he realized the GM is framing a scene to include your character. Or maybe from hearing one player shush another during your scene. Or often from the suggestions the other players make to you during your scene, how totally dead-on they are in their understanding of your character. When the game is on, you absolutely know that the other players are engaged by the story you're working up with your character.

"Story" might have achieved diluted meaning, but protagonism is protagonism. A character isn't a protagonist unless the audience is hooked by his struggle.

Mostly when it comes up it comes up as "deprotagonized" which is vernacular for "the GM took my power away" not "the other players didn't care about my character."

Hey...I'm the one who coined the word deprotagonize...to describe things about gameplay that undermine the ability of the audience to have emotional and intellectual investment in a player character's endeavors and his struggle with antagonistic forces. Whiff-syndrome mechanics are one such thing; they deprotagonize by making characters into slip-and-fall caricatures of ineffectiveness. But mechanics that kill characters without regard to thematic closure, or that preclude satisfying thematic closure by killing or ruining a character's significant foils are offenders as well.

Paul

I wasn't clear: your games are not pre-established plotlines. They (I assume) grow adapt, and diverge with a variety of inputs (not the least of which may be the random factor of the dice). Your games are not text media. They aren't film media. You say they're pretty close to stagecraft--I can accept that--but I presme there are no scripts. In short, no--these are all still metaphors (as I see it):

Consider the defintion for "protagonist." When I look it up I get:

"The principal character in a literary work (as a drama or story)"*

There is nothing here that suggest an audience at all structurally. The key element of the word protagonist is to be opposite the antagonist--the focal point of the struggle.

As I see it, that meaning is satisfied by simulationist play.

-Marco

* the rest of the Marriam Webster definitons (which also do not contain the emotional attachment clause):
1 a : the principal character in a literary work (as a drama or story) b : a leading actor, character, or participant in a literary work or real event
2 : a leader, proponent, or supporter of a cause : CHAMPION
3 : a muscle that by its contraction actually causes a particular movement

See, this issue of audience and "established literary work" strongly suggests to me that the question is really a perspectival one.

From the perspective of an audience, i.e. from a perspective standing outside the events and considering them as parts of a story (in a literary sense), its the context of the events -- front and back -- which makes a given character a protagonist or otherwise.

From the perspective of the character, presumably he is always the protagonist, but the events in question have no literary shape. That is, one's life does not have a plot -- it just goes on. After the fact, looking back on a life, one can say that it had certain climactic moments and whatnot, but at the time it's all seen from within. If what you're doing right now is something that in a story would pretty much necessarily set you up for a horrendous fall, are you going to actually in your life decide to have that horrendous fall happen? Hell no -- you'll try to get out.

So it seems to me that literary protagonism requires an exterior perspective, not a fully-immersed one. That's why the question of audience is so important.

clehrich wrote: See, this issue of audience and "established literary work" strongly suggests to me that the question is really a perspectival one.

I'm going to seem to flip-flop midway here, so hold on tight.

Marco, you seem to want to have your cake and eat it too. There are points at which you deny the applicability of Literary Theory above, and then later you yourself invoke it.

Protagonist must become "Jargonized" if it's to have any meaning in the context of RPGs. Or a substitute term used if that's more palatable.

That said, I agree that the Narrativist Agenda has hijacked the jargon on this one. Yes, Paul enumerated these things first. And as such I'm tempted to allow it to go unchallenged. But when making a Jargon term, one ought to choose something that intuitively does not include things it's not meant to include if it can. Now, no movement of a term to Jargon is ever perfect (given the nature of the process), as we've all discovered from the many, many debates about Ron's choice of terms.

But this one is particularly bad, because even in it's Jargonized form, it doesn't seem to convey by it's new definition that which is sought. That being player control of the process of "protagonization". Because, indeed, a PC can be made to seem cool to all onlookers by the GM as well as by the player.

No, this process will not satisfy the Narrativist player. But it can satisfy a lot of players. So, either the definition of Protagonism has to be changed to specifically include player empowerment in the process, or it needs to be allowed to pertain to any participant's creation of protagonism. I'd say the latter is the more intuitive by far. I'd call the former Narrativist Protagonization or possibly Character-Player Protagonization to specify.

Just as "story" is grossly prejudicial in the discussion of Narrativism, so, too, does protagonism seem to me to be. For, if a GM making a PC look good isn't Protagonism, then what is it? And if a character seems cool to just one player, but not the others, isn't he still in some way a protagonist? We can't possibly all agree all the time about what's cool.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: I'm going to seem to flip-flop midway here, so hold on tight.

Marco, you seem to want to have your cake and eat it too. There are points at which you deny the applicability of Literary Theory above, and then later you yourself invoke it.

Mike

Marco,

You said something really important here, that I think gets at the heart of the matter:

Paul's perspective is that the player is the actor and the observers are the audience. I see it as the character is the actor and the player is the audience

clehrich wrote: All I mean is that a given person is a protagonist when the events in which he is involved are considered as a story. I.e., from a distance.

Marco wrote: I pick up the dictionary and read "main character." Aren't the PC's in a sim game the "main characters" of the "story?" (insofar as story *can* be applied--story as an outcome? a simulated -real-life' event that contains story like structure ... whatever)

We can't ditch the term "story" as it applies to Sim-gaming because the whole wide world that doesn't post here *sees* Sim-gaming as a story--and, so far as the metaphore *can* be applied, I think correctly. But we have to allow that the dynamic events that unfold in RPG play are different than traditional media which is delivered as a whole product to the consumer.

Mike Holmes wrote: Um, yeah. I think you didn't read far enough. I was agreeing with you on that...

Mike

To be clear, Marco, we disagree on the Jargon issue, but agree on the outcome of the definition of Protagonism in that it doesn't need to apply only to the Narrativist method.

As for the issue of definitions, you're point was that Paul's definition was unsuitable because it applied to literature. Then you say that yours should apply because it comes from a dictionary. Where do you think the dictionary definition came from, but from literary theory (seeing as it's a term from that theory).

That's what I was refering to with the Antoinette quote. You want to be able to exclude definitions based on the fact that they derive from outside gaming, but not be subject to that restriction yourself.

Mike

I see what you're saying. My reaching for the dictionary was only in response to someone else's using the word protagonist. If you want to call the "protagonists of an RPG" the Player Characters I'm all over that even more. That is actually a correct, unarguable, and fairly riggorous term.

It's when you want to:
a) Use literary terms and then
b) Define them in what I think is a narrow and even misleading fashion

That I
c) Go to the same source you drew from (a definition of 'protagonist') to say "By your own standards I think I've got a legitimate beef with your usage."

-Marco
Edited To add: In short, I think the whole word is wrong--but if it's gonna be used, the Marriam Webster definition is as fair a shake as anyone's.

But, see, it's OK to create Jargon. I'm aware that you don't like it, but it's a fact of life that people make Jargon, and that it's helpful to do so. At least there are enough of us here that think so that we're not going to stop using Jargon simply because a few people don't like having to use it in communicating here.

And it's not done disingenuously. You seem to be thinking that it's used to be deceptive ("misleading"). I totally disagree. We make no bones about the fact that someone who doesn't know the Jargon of the site may not understand what we're talking about. But we are all willing to go out of our way to let people know what we mean. When Paul first used the term, he posted for all to see exactly what his reasoning was in using the term in question.

So I don't disagree with Paul's attempt to grab a term that, to him seems appropriate to use in describing some RPG effect. I disagree with the particular term he chose, because I agree that a Jargonized version closer to a more common use of the word would be more intuitive, and more broadly useful. He could use something else for his Jargon.

But it's not Jargon in general that's problematic.

I think you owe Paul an apollogy. But, hey, that's just me.

Mike

Hey Paul,

After reading Mike's msg, I'm sorry for a couple of things.

1. I never meant to tell you that "you weren't doing what you said you were doing--" which is how my RPG's-aren't-like-that bit came off. I dig that you're working on creating a shared story--for an audience. I totally believe that. I'm sure you get a fantastic gaming experience out of it.

I was refering to the "completed narrative" (as in a written book or play where the plot, characters, and events are set in type) vs. a "dynamic narrative" where things can and do change a whole lot (and then there's the dice thing)--so I was trying to say RPG's aren't like books.

2. The "misleading" comment. I never intended to be read as saying you were trying to trick anyone (I think I'd have chosen "deceptive" for that). I meant not only confusing as to it's meaning but to some people implying the something far removed from the interpertation they'd (I) give (gave) it.

I don't and never did believe you were trying to obfusicate anything. And I wasn't aware you coined the term. I (honestly) believed Mike Holmes had since I'd seen him using it a lot.

-Marco

Hey Marco,

But when someone pulls out a definition for "protagonist" that I disagree with, I'll reach for the dictionary.

When someone asks you to tell them a story, what do they mean? The problem with your definitions for story and for protagonism is that, while not innacurate, they fail to apprehend the real essence of what's going to satisfy someone's request for story. In our society, when someone requests a story, what they want is something that reaches out and connects with them on a human level, that resonates with their own understanding of the human condition and comments on it. If you give them something less, something that doesn't connect personally, even the chronologue of a main character who solves dilemmas and has dramatic effect on the world, you'll get feedback that it's a bad story, or not a story.

We don't need to use a 50-cent word like 'protagonist' if all we mean is a 'main character'.

But the real issue isn't the terminology. It's the desire by folks for something more than what's being delivered by play. Insisting on a definition for protagonist that's entirely in accord with what a given game can deliver just forces more disillusionment on the person who knows he isn't getting what he wants, and puts him in the position of trying to come up with a new term to get his point across. Yet the only reason to insist on such a baseline definition is because you want the positive association with the word's connotations...the exact same connotations that caused the guy who wants more than what's being delivered to choose the word in the first place to make his point. "No, I don't want a recounting of events, I want a story. No, I don't want a main character, I want a protagonist." The terms have connotations. To want an association with the term for its positive connotations, and then deny it actually means those things is a disservice to the term.

Paul

Hey Marco,

We cross-posted, methinks. For what it's worth, I haven't taken anything you've said on this thread as a personal attack.

Paul

Marco wrote: And I wasn't aware you coined the term. I (honestly) believed Mike Holmes had since I'd seen him using it a lot.

Hey Mike,

I personally see what you both mean by story, and am satisified by either. I don't think that all players neccessarily want or need a Narrativist story.

I don't disagree. What I'm arguing against is the filing off of the edges of the terms that allow those that do to articulate their preferences.

Paul

Roger that.

When someone asks for a story, I tell 'em a story. When they ask me to run a game, I do something else. Similar, but different (for me). If your wife asks for a bedtime story you're not gonna pull out the Sorceror rule book ... I figure. More power to ya if that's how things are in the (hypothetical) Czege household.

If you changed the term, I'd have understood it immediately. It'd be clear. The problem comes when you pick a term that's in wide-spread usage and don't mean what you're saying. I had no idea you thought de-protagonized meant disconnecting with an audience.

As far as conotations go, I'd prefer not to call PC's protagonists. To *me* a protagonist connotates an initially passive force that is acted on by an antagonist--I know that ain't what it means, but that's my connotation. To me you're implying that Narrativist play is passive.

That's 'woah' 180-degrees.

-Marco

Oops...forgot one comment...

I've truely felt that some of my characters in more railroaded games were, in fact protagonists in every sense of the word.

Not having been there, I can't disagree. The question I'd ask, is who had ownership of the aspects of gameplay that delivered your character's protagonism? GM-delivered protagonism (in the "audience interest" sense of the term) seems like a theoretical possibility (though not at all to my personal taste, as I'm sure you can imagine). I'd love to see a play report.

Paul

How about Narrativist sorts of Protagonists are acted on by Player Dynamism (as opposed to hypothetical GM Dynamism)?

That's a little problematic, as the player can choose to have the character remain the same, and as such it would be Player Staticism or something.

Just trying out some new terms.

Mike

Paul Czege wrote: GM-delivered protagonism (in the "audience interest" sense of the term) seems like a theoretical possibility (though not at all to my personal taste, as I'm sure you can imagine). I'd love to see a play report.

Hi there,

I'm really scratching my head now.

I consider "story," "protagonist," and "theme" to be related terms, and that the link between them concerns protagonist decisions. I also think that the unit represented by them is a viable product of all three modes of play. The existence of the unit, as an outome of play, is not limited to Narrativism.

I also think that this unit can be produced by almost-total GM input, or by almost-total player input, or by some functional blend of GM and player input.

Please note that when the method is GM-heavy, that the GM is indeed "playing" the characters, in terms of theme/decision heavy points in the story. GM-delivered protagonism is, in my view, common and assumed in a wide variety of games and across all of role-playing history. It may be done through overt and basic agreement about it, through illusionist techniques involving scene framing and IIEE, or, more negatively, through railroading.

So Marco's play descriptions, and there are several to choose from here at the Forge as well as at the JAGS site, all provide pretty good examples of that unit being brought about.

Not a shred of my text regarding the Impossible Thing challenges that point. Nor have I ever challenged that point in any text or post. Nor does this challenge any element of my definition of Narrativism.

Best,
Ron

GM-delivered protagonism . . . well, the only form that worked for me was (I guess) Illusionism, really. As in, for a bit the GM succeded in convincing me that my choices mattered, and I and others were emotinally engaged with the character - but before long I realized that was only true when my choices matched his choices. And I lost my emotional interest in the character. Not sure about the others.

Gordon

Hey Ron,

I consider "story," "protagonist," and "theme" to be related terms, and that the link between them concerns protagonist decisions. I also think that the unit represented by them is a viable product of all three modes of play.

I agree with the linkage, but "viable" seems like a strong word to me. Protagonism, in my experience, is a delicate creature. It dies easily when subjected to whiff-producing resolution mechanics. And my experience dovetails with Gordon's. If a character's protagonism is revealed to have a GM-derived nature, either a revolt from the play group ensues, or the player of that character loses interest and the protagonism of the character withers as a result.

Still, maybe "theoretical possibility" for GM-derived protagonism wasn't the best phrase. What I meant was that a GM's ability to sustain it for the duration of a multi-session scenario was theoretically possible, that is, not something I'd ever witnesssed.

Of course, that skeptical assessment is coming from a guy with a history of being quickest to bail from a game when he realizes he isn't authoring his own character. It's hard for an organism to be viable in a poisonous environment. So it seems the question is, how poisonous to GM-derived protagonism are the games that I don't inhabit?

Paul

I just thought I should add - when I say GM-deliverd protagonism only worked for me in a probably-Illusionist game, before the illusion was revealed . . . I'm using Paul's protagonist definition, there. Emotional connection, audience, all that.

I'm starting to get a feel for this more general protagonism, and that may be a different issue entirely. GM-delivered "PC-omph" may be much more common, even in my experience - gotta think about that a bit, though, since I'm not even sure what GM-delivered "PC-omph" would look/feel like.

Gordon

Paul Czege wrote: So it seems the question is, how poisonous to GM-derived protagonism are the games that I don't inhabit?