Hi everyone,

It's so much easier than everyone makes it.

Work with me on one thing only: by "story," just for purposes of this one issue, we're talking about stuff like conflicts, resolutions, you know, like in reg'lar novels and movies and plays. Dude faces problem, complications ensue, stuff gets resolved.

With me? Good.

Okay, the whole deal is that such a story ultimately relies on the Main Dudes ("protagonists," ooh, English class) making decisions. He or she or they have to have a choice about something, at some point. Sometimes it's just before the story begins, sometimes it's right at the end, but most of the time it's somewhere in the middle.

Halfway through Die Hard, John McClane is free to escape the office building. He stays. Why? Because he loves his wife, even if she's contemplating leaving him, and he wants (a) to save her life and (b) to demonstrate his commitment to her.

There ya go. Decision. Take it out of Die Hard, just force him to be there the whole time, and the "story" of the story diminishes sharply.

The bomb's been planted and all the aliens are gonna be blown up. Ripley chooses not to escape safely and goes back into the nest-hive to rescue the little girl, Newt.

Michael can walk away: he doesn't like the Mafia, has always avoided it. But he chooses instead to become the new Godfather and is willing to sacrifice the happiness of everyone he knows to do it.

So, who makes the decisions in a role-playing session - positing that this role-playing session, when all is said and done, is a Story of this kind? Someone has to do it; they don't happen by themselves.

1. The GM does it. The players have "choices," such as being allowed to squabble in a picturesque fashion between important scenes, or being able to choose what weapons to outfit themselves with. But when it comes to the story choices, the GM's all set. Maybe the GM made those decisions before play; maybe he improvises them as the group goes. Doesn't matter. If he's unsubtle, it's "shut up and get in the death-trap" time. If he's subtle, then whatever the players do, the GM will transmogrify it into a decision of story significance.

2. The players do it. They really direct the actions of the protagonists, and, unsurprisingly, may play a big role in engineering the situations which cause the characters conflict in the first place. The GM in such a situation plays a facilitative role, perhaps an aggressive one or perhaps a mild one, because he cannot decide when the conflict is the conflict, far less how the character will address it.

That's all there is to it - that either #1 or #2 is happening, in such a game. Identify the key decisions of the protagonist - who made them? And all the Impossible Thing says is, the buck has to stop somewhere.

The problem with the previous thread was that everyone jostled and practically competed to lay down The Word without reference to what the original poster really needed to know. This time, please don't do that.

I ask that anyone responding to this post please take a full day to think about it, starting with the time that you read it. Consider any and all instances of play which involve "story" in this sense, and identify the key decisions that carry emotional, climactic weight in those stories.

Best,
Ron

Ron, this is good and useful stuff. It illuminates my particular point of disagreement: some of your assumptions about "story".

Sure, there are moments of particular crisis where a single person makes a decision. But that's just part of the story. In the games I like to run and play, as in a fair amount of the fiction I like to read, the moments of crisis are not themselves fore-ordained - they emerge along with everything else out of the interesting starting point. Decisions, small and large, all drive the characters and the others in the environment (and in some cases the environment itself) to a make-or-break moment. But where that point comes may well not be obvious to any of the participants at the time, and there are a whole lot of decisions involved. Sometimes a very satisfying story ends up with...well, as Rosencrantz says in the Stoppard play, "There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said -- no. But somehow we missed it." There are games I look back on and think very much that - what happened is utterly different from what I planned, and I cannot pinpoint a specific point where whatever I planned went out the window, and yet I never abrogated my authority over the world around the characters, and the outcome has the feeling of dramatic suitability.

Something similar applies to fiction which is written without heavy preliminaries. Jack Kerouac's "write and never revise" motto is an obvious case in point, along with Wiliam Burroughs' cut-ups and the like. Closer to gaming home, I was fascinated to learn that Peter Straub writes without an outline or anything beyond a general sense of what he wants. He does revise, but the work generates a lot of twists and turns that are not planned. Something similar applies to the films of Mike Leigh, who gets his actors to immerse themselves in their roles, lays out very general priorities for a scene, and has them do the rest. I understand that many of the most striking parts of his films originate with the actors, and yet the films continue to reflect his overall vision. David Lynch works similarly. For that matter, Rutger Hauer's invention of the monologue at the end of Blade Runner - "all these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain" and the moments he describes are Hauer's invention - do not make the film any less a Ridley Scott film. Some works are planned and executed with openness not just allowed but actively encouraged.

For writers who write this way, and for gamers who game this way, the ground of the story is something other than its points of decision-making crisis. It might be recurrent imagery, or overall ambience, or any of several other things, and the crises serve those other ends. And if one is gaming in this way, without clear crises or with only secondary emphasis on them, then the story may indeed unfold with whatever conflicts of control revolve around the crisis simply not mattering much. I as GM have no problem conceding whatever control the player needs for those bits because they're not the point for me. I control other parts of the game which do matter more to me, and which allow me to present what I nonetheless feel works as a story in the style of literature and film I enjoy.

A friend of mine just tossed up what I regard as an insight that is both true and useful. (One doesn't want to take either for granted. :) )

The GNS treatment of story and of critical decisions is existentialist: the act of decision creates the character at that moment, and this act in turn creates the world in response to it.

Now, I have a lot of sympathy for the existentialist position both in real life and as a way of thinking about various creative issues. I don't maintain a little shrine to Camus just because I like his brand of cigarettes. But it's not the only way to think about things.

In the Greek tragic doctrine of hubris, for instance, there may or not be any single crucial point; the character is pre-doomed by the fatal flaw, and the story is not "can he escape his fate?" but "how will his attempts fail, and what will it matter to others?"

Marxism offers a modern version of the medieval notion of microcosm, in that the individual's thoughts and actions are conditioned by the whole of society, and the tale of what the character can or cannot do is simultaneously the tale of what the society is like at that moment, whether any of its members realize it or not.

In a romantic comedy, there must be love and marriage despite adversity, and the characters are not allowed to choose not to have them; they can only hasten or delay the point of conscious surrender.

In one of James Ellroy's historical noir novels, there will be three main characters. One will die, one will rise and then fall, and one will fall and then rise. Luck will play a large part in this, whatever they scheme, hope, or fear. Outside godlike forces, like Dudley Smith and J. Edgar Hoover, push the characters to and fro without even the moral satisfactions of watching hubris unfold.

And so on. The question therefore has to be not just "Is this a story?" but "What kind of story is this, and what's important in it?" Different kinds of important things call for different divisions of labor, and each creates different sorts of tension when it comes to who gets to control which of the neat bits.

All of what you've said Bruce is quite true, but I'm failing to see what your trying to conclude from it.

Ron's post does not boil down an entire story to a single decision, his examples did that for the sake of brevity and simplicity. Their are decision points throughout the story.

Also there is no quality indicator between Choice 1 and Choice 2 as Ron outlined them. Ron is not saying Choice 2 is better and Choice 1 is not real story.

One is being said is that for every such decision who determines which direction the story goes...the GM or the Player. Someone makes that call at each and every point.

The reason the Impossible Thing is impossible is because the game text directs BOTH the GM and the player to make the choice...which by definition is impossible. You can negotiate and discuss, but ultimately someone has to make the call.

You can't look at the fiction you like to read in isolation. This is a roleplaying game. In fiction the author is making all of the choices for everyone. So take a favorite situation out of one of your favorite stories and pretend its a roleplaying game, and you're the character. Now you know the choice that the character made in the novel...what is the full range of choices the character COULD have made if this situation came up in a game. Notice how some of the choices would have taken the ultimate story to a completely different place.

No imagine you're playing this game and you have those choices before you. Who makes the decision as to which path the character goes down.
You...or the GM.

Does your character bend to fit the GMs vision. Or does the GMs vision bend to fit your character.

Someone has to bend...that's all the Impossible Thing is about.

Now I know you're thinking...wait that's it...that's so elementary. I've known that intuitively since I first started gaming...so you slapped an impressive sounding name on something that foundational. No wonder I wasn't getting it, I was looking for something more profound than that.

Quite...what's profound about it is the realization that the game text as written assumes the bend is not necessary. The game text as written gives full authority to make that decision to two different parties and profers no guidance as to how to resolve the disparity.

What's profound then is the possibilities that open up for game design when one realizes that this cliched text found in so many RPGs is 1) utterly useless (which most of us already know) but more importantly 2) that it DOESN'T have to be left purely up to a group's social contract to sort out.

Games like Donjon are very explicit about who has the authority to say what and when. The Dramatic Editing rules in Adventure! go to some length to outline exactly the parameters of the authority are. Exactly what can the player say, when can he say, how and why can the GM overrule him and further ties it to an explicit in game resource.

That's it...that's all there is to it. Simple, basic, yet very powerful once you discard the trope and start playing with the alternatives.

Ron - Perhaps what you describe would be better called the Protagonism Dichotomy - it's about who has power to make the most significant decisions of the characters.

Bruce Baugh wrote:
In the Greek tragic doctrine of hubris, for instance, there may or not be any single crucial point; the character is pre-doomed by the fatal flaw, and the story is not "can he escape his fate?" but "how will his attempts fail, and what will it matter to others?"

Bruce Baugh wrote: moments of particular crisis where a single person makes a decision. But that's just part of the story

the moments of crisis are not themselves fore-ordained - they emerge along with everything else out of the interesting starting point.

Hi there,

I'm especially interested in whether bladamson found my post helpful.

Bruce, I am very much enjoying your posts and insights. However, in many ways, you're really fightin' hard ... in a fight that isn't happening. None of your points contradict or refute anything I'm saying.

For instance, you raise the issue of the origin of the decision-points ... and I'm leaving that completely up for grabs, by group, by game, whatever. A story is clearly not composed only of decision-points; for one thing, it would be too frenetic to enjoy.

Dammit, I'm trying to avoid GNS in this thread, but there's a reason I chose the word "narrativism."

Narrative:

1. establishing a protagonist and conflict (both of which include audience participation and engagement)

2. resolving the conflict via non-protagonist events and protagonist decisions

3. effect on audience: a resultant theme, which is not the nonsense that most English teachers talk about, but rather is a judgment or point attributed to the story, in part created by the audience

Best,
Ron

the ground of the story is something other than its points of decision-making

the story is not "can he escape his fate?" but "how will his attempts fail, and what will it matter to others?"

In a romantic comedy, there must be love and marriage despite adversity, and the characters are not allowed to choose not to have them; they can only hasten or delay the point of conscious surrender.

And so on. The question therefore has to be not just "Is this a story?" but "What kind of story is this, and what's important in it?"

Actually, what I'm trying to do is explain why I find Ron's concern with decision points uninteresting. I choose that word carefully and use it precisely - I do not mean that it is unworthy, or wicked, or otherwise lacking in merit. I mean that I don't find the question crucial to my sense of how authority gets divided in a game. I started off with that reaction, and am writing to clarify it as much for myself as for anyone else.

I am not rejecting Ron's effort at identifying something important. I know from experience with lots of folks that he's onto an issue that genuinely does matter for a goodly number of gamers and a goodly number of games. But I also know that it doesn't get anywhere near the issues that matter most to how I game and write. I'm in the process of identifying what does matter to me in a way comparable to how this matters for Ron and the GNS model. It's partly a matter of methodology (particularly terminology) and partly a matter of actual content.

Hi Bruce,

I get you.

The real issue then becomes, does your input help bladamson?

If you - as I perceive - dispensed with any hassles regarding The Impossible Thing near-effortlessly long ago, then yes, move to where "hassles" exist for you. I for one am really, really interested in what you'll to present about that, and I hope you consider an article at the Forge.

But! That's not an appropriate discussion for this thread. At all.

C'mon ... everyone, this whole issue isn't about me, GNS, or The Impossible Thing. It's about bladamson and making sense of a good and interesting question he's raised - with any luck, in my view anyway, showing that his mode of play is (like all successful play) a solution to the Impossible Thing.

Let's focus on that. Unless this discussion is addressed to bladamson's specific personal outlook and experience, it's wanking. His question and its personal context for him is why this thread exists, and I'm cracking down, Moderator-wise, on anything that deviates from the topic. As a rule - and new people, this is key to discussions at the Forge - we do not operate as "lone voices crying out among one another" here. This is discourse, the development of ideas through communication.

I'm thinking that terms like "avoiding it" are carrying the wrong implication, implying some kind of shying away or denial. I'd like to emphasize that the Impossible Thing is not a goal, but rather a sucking void and a cogitive trap.

I'm also thinking that the term "control" is causing lots of problems. Shall we say, merely, "contribute?" That's all that's meant. Obviously, both GM and players contribute to the content of play. The issue is, who contributes these points of key decision?

Best,
Ron

Bruce: Ok, good to know. I, like Ron, am thus interested in what hassles you are finding and what you'll make of the terminology here: not merely GNS, but Illusionism et al.

Ron: Isn't Sindyr the one you are referring to, not bladamson?
(In either case, I'll shut up until one of those two responds)

Damn! Both, actually.

Best,
Ron

Well, I didn't wait a full 24 hours like Ron asked, but I at least slept on it. I think the heart of the issue is in Ron's option #1, specifically the case of subtle GM control. As Ron himself puts it, the players do whatever they want. Thus the distinction between this and #2 depends on whether decisions are "transmogrified". I'm not really sure what this means.

We can talk back and forth for a while about what "traditional" role-playing games exactly say and mean. Personally, I find that an example of a real game always helps.

_____________________

My Star Trek campaigns had a clear and fairly strict formula for each session. I had an episodic format, so each session would introduce and resolve one central conflict (with occaisional two-parters). The introduction tended to be scripted: the ship would respond to orders or perhaps a distress call, and the PCs would find a situation which they would have to deal with.

However, the situation always called for a moral and ethically charged decision. My general method for designing episodes was to pick (A) a science-fiction trope such as 'primitives' treating technology as magic; and (B) a social or ethical issue to parallel, such as foreign policy. At the heart of the episode was always a decision which could go either way. It was always a very real decision with important consequences.

To take a particular episode, they encountered a primitive leader (Vilid) who by a masterpiece of trickery had taken over a demilitarized orbital station. He was of a culture who years before had been given flintlocks by the Federation (specifically Captain Kirk) to match the aid given by Klingons to the other side. However, since then the Federation had not continued military aid, while the Klingons had. Vilid thus conceived of his plan, and went on what he saw as a mythic journey to trick weapons from the Sky Demons.

This was an absolutely set up situation. The session began with the station already in Vilid's control, and the PCs received briefing on the background and the current situation. What they did to resolve it, however, was entirely up to them. There was sharp disagreement among the players on this. The captain's player did not identify at all with Vilid and was opposed to dealing with him. However, two other players were immediately taken by the character and wanted him to succeed. To complicate things, after the first communication, Vilid made a human sacrifice of one of his own people -- because he was convinced that the Sky Demons demanded blood. (He had not killed anyone on board the station.) They then arranged for face-to-face negotiation. After investigating the possibilities, however, the captain reluctantly agreed to grant his demands.

As a slight postscript, the Chief Science Officer on board was a devout Muslim, and was one of those highly impressed by Vilid. Just before they beamed down, he secretly slipped a copy of the Koran to them, unbeknownst to the rest of the crew.

_____________________

Personally, I saw this as roughly a 50/50 split. I set up the situation, but the crucial resolution of the story was generally a choice in the hands of the players. They could have attempted an assault and chosen to kill Vilid to prevent further interference in the culture, or tried to convince him with speeches and demonstrations that they were not demons, or many other possibilities. Each of these decisions would have crucially changed the story.

It seems to me that the breakup of control and responsibility among GM/players for this game was pretty much the same as recommended in most traditional role-playing games. The question is: which side was I on, #1 or #2? i.e. Did I "transmogrify" the players' decisions? How can I tell?

Hi John,

In most cases, setup isn't part of the picture.

Given your description, you as GM did not in any way interfere with the players' decision-authority. That's not to say you did nothing; you played too, you introduced stuff which happened, and so on. But, in my reading of your post, you didn't tell them how to feel about it, what to do, or how to resolve the conflict.

I know you don't agree about this (or I think you don't), but based on your description, you played bass. The setup was the "four"-count that bassists often provide. The players played the melody, and what they said (so to speak) was their own.

Best,
Ron

My question is simple: Is it really impossible?

Is the idea of the GM's authorship and the player's directing their character's really that fundamentally incompatible? Or have we been misusing or misunderstanding the terms in our assumption, perhaps too narrowly?

Ron Edwards wrote: Given your description, you as GM did not in any way interfere with the players' decision-authority. That's not to say you did nothing; you played too, you introduced stuff which happened, and so on. But, in my reading of your post, you didn't tell them how to feel about it, what to do, or how to resolve the conflict.

I know you don't agree about this (or I think you don't), but based on your description, you played bass. The setup was the "four"-count that bassists often provide. The players played the melody, and what they said (so to speak) was their own.

Ok, I went back and read Sindyr's original post and a couple things struck me as kinda funny, especially as you read his examples.

To define things as they came across to me off of what he wrote,

GM/Author- the person in charge of keeping track of and organizing the events of a world in a continual cause and effect manner as they are manipulated by the players/protagonists.

Player/Protagonists- an occupant of the world in question controlled by a player that has direct and constant effect on the world at large based on their decisions or non decisions.

Now when I looked at Ron's first post, he lays it out pretty clear, Bruce does as well in his own fashion.

But here is where everyone seems to get all up in all arms. Jumping up and down saying "It's the impossible thing! Don't you get it? The way texts put it down it just can't work that way."

To pick on Valamir for a second, (sorry Valamir)

The reason the Impossible Thing is impossible is because the game text directs BOTH the GM and the player to make the choice...which by definition is impossible. You can negotiate and discuss, but ultimately someone has to make the call.

You can't look at the fiction you like to read in isolation. This is a roleplaying game. In fiction the author is making all of the choices for everyone. So take a favorite situation out of one of your favorite stories and pretend its a roleplaying game, and you're the character. Now you know the choice that the character made in the novel...what is the full range of choices the character COULD have made if this situation came up in a game. Notice how some of the choices would have taken the ultimate story to a completely different place.

No imagine you're playing this game and you have those choices before you. Who makes the decision as to which path the character goes down.
You...or the GM.

Does your character bend to fit the GMs vision. Or does the GMs vision bend to fit your character.

Someone has to bend...that's all the Impossible Thing is about.

Well, my GM Herbie can make any scenario fun.... [ahem]

A 'good' GM transmorphs the characters' decisions to fit the story. This maintains suspension of disbelief for the players who do not want to spoil the adventure. In a 'good' group the decisions are shared.

Other wise you have either:
1. So-called 'dungeon-breakers' (players whose characters run wild and wreck the adventure in an effort to gut it for treasure and exps.

2. A-Hole railroading GM.

Dragongrace's door example is perfect. A good GM would mentally change from door 'A' to door 'B' to be the significant plot point.

Hi there,

Jeff, change "a good GM" to "I as a GM" or "the GM I want to play with," and you're all set.

John, one teeny difference I want to emphasize: the GM doesn't even have to be providing the moral slant, or issue. If that itself evolves out of the players' choices as play goes along, that's cool too. Either way. Contrast (1) Sorcerer and Hero Wars, which pretty much demand that it evolve out of actual play or is agreed upon beforehand, with (2) Legends of Alyria and Orkworld, in which group construction of the moral issue is required, even before characters are made.

Joe, that was nifty, and hey Sylus, I really liked that post.

Still hoping that bladamson and Sindyr show up.

Best,
Ron

Sylus Thane wrote:
To pick on Valamir for a second, (sorry Valamir)

The reason the Impossible Thing is impossible is because the game text directs BOTH the GM and the player to make the choice...which by definition is impossible. You can negotiate and discuss, but ultimately someone has to make the call.

And to this I say.....DUH! Of course someone has to make the call, but it can't always, and isn't always the player. Just like in reality sometimes you make the decision and sometimes it is made for you.

In this example it seems to me, please correct me if I'm horribly wrong, Valamir looks upon Author as an ultimate control persona that takes away from his control of his character as a player. Hence his example of who bends or whose vision is followed. And in a way he is right, but in a way he is wrong and so is everyone else. Most probably in the way that we look at GMing and misapplied the term author to it.

On the subject of text. The "Impossible Thing" becomes a problem, precisely when players who (unlike Bruce who does not have this problem), interperet the text of such a game to mean that the Impossible Thing can occur. Basically that some players want to believe that their characters decisions are going to be creating the "story" in the sense that Ron states. But the GM reading the same text thinks it's his job. So he doesn't release this power to the players (or at least not in the measure that they'd like).

Resulting in one of two problems eventually. Either the player is dissapointed with the lack of actual power, or the player takes power, and goes against the plot. At which point, the GM either has to hand over power (in which case Narrativism occurs), or dysfunction occurs. You know the scene, the GM needs for the characters to go into the dungeon, the players want to go elsewhere (in this case for some "story" based reasons), and the GM says, "It's dark now, and you hear the growls of Hellwolves that will most certainly eat you if you don't go in the dungeon." Or even more subtly, "OK, you don't want to go see Bobby G? Well then what do you do?" essentially the Force by threat of boredom.

Note that the broadest description of Illusionism, is the GM creating a plot from character actions and leaving them thinking it all occured because of their decisions. The Illusion is that the players have the power, when, in fact, the GM has the power. This form of technical Sim can satisfy the player who wants his decisions to to create the story. But not in all cases.

Bruce, you don't care about the sharing of power that these players desire? That's fine. Nobody expects anyone to have to share their concerns. But it would be a nice nod to them to include in the text of the next game, something more like, "It's the GMs job to create the story, and the Players jobs to play out their parts in it."

As has been said repeatedly, GNS is not an all encompasing theory of what RPGs are about. It is one way of classifying RPGs to adress one sort of potential problem. There are only three ways to play from a GNS POV. But that doesn't mean that there aren't subcategories, or entirely othe ways to describe RPGs. All saying that there are only three modes means is that they are mutually exclusive.

And that's the point of The Impossible Thing. You can't have a decision that's simultaneously Sim and Nar. That's what it's all about.

If I wanted to be crass about it, to make the point, I could point out that the Impossible Thing was promulgated to support the idea that Narrativism is it's own thing. That is, it's part of a circular argument that begins with the assumption that there are players who want control of certain sorts of decisons.

The whole theory would be pointless except for one fact. The assumtion is correct. Basically there have been a large number of disenfranchised players for a long time because of the lack of admitting their existence, or more to the point that they aren't being catered to. As long as the texts like the ones in early WW products stated that these players could be satisfied by these games, there was no way that they actually were going to be recognized as different than Simulationists.

So from one POV, it's all a political outcry from a minority who wants to be recognized. And hell, why not? If they want something different, then that just gives us that much more opportunity to create games that cater to them.

Mike

I've separated this from the post above for clarity.

The GM wishes the player to enter the door and go down the stairs to continue with the GM's planned plot. Plot A. (A)

The Player wishes the character to turn left walk down the hall and follow the Player's planned plot. (B)

both A and B cannot happen at the same time. (If it does then the GM and the player are in two different games.) Either A will take precedence or B will take precedence. Because both cannot happen at the same time, it is a logical impossibility.

Hey,

Mike, you're not helping. I really don't want nuances and local personal variants. In fact, I'm going to ask everyone except for bladamson and Sindyr simply to stop posting to this thread.

Guys? Any questions, concerns, whatever. Go by my first post, above, and tell me what you think.

Best,
Ron

and hey Sylus, I really liked that post.

What's important here is that games which rely on "Impossible Thing" text do not provide any guidance for this mechanism. The decision still must get made (and does) but relies entirely on the social contract of the players to sort out. Realizing that the Impossible Thing is in fact Impossible then opens the door to game designers to scrap such useless, contradictory text and design more explicit guidance or even outright mechanics to cover this.

And that's the point of The Impossible Thing. You can't have a decision that's simultaneously Sim and Nar. That's what it's all about.

Sorry Ron, we crossposted, I didn't see your last comments until mine was sent.

Sylus

I am still here, and I appreciate the effort...

Let me get my thoughts in a row, and I will post.

-Sindyr

Ron Edwards wrote: Still hoping that bladamson and Sindyr show up.

Hi guys,

Thanks for posting! I want to emphasize that threads here are considered useful only insofar as people are learning, communicating, and trying to see one another's point of view - and ripping into ideas, not one another.

So that you're still with it, in one of our ... less successful ferments, shall we say, means a lot to me.

Everyone, it's time to give this thread a rest, until we get the feedback from the folks who count. Remember that any comments of yours are irrelevant until you know where Sindyr and bladamson stand relative to the issues.

Best,
Ron

To start off, here's a quote from an article here on the forge:

The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast

• "The GM is the author of the story and the players direct the actions of the protagonists." Widely repeated across many role-playing texts. Neither sub-clause in the sentence is possible in the presence of the other.

The GM is the author of the story and the players direct the actions of the protagonists.

When you play the Dungeons and Dragons game, you create a unique fictional character that lives in your imagination and the imagination of your friends. One person in the game, the Dungeon Master (DM) controls the monsters and the people that live in the fantasy world. You and your friends face the dangers and explore the mysteries that your Dungeon Master sets before you.

Let's start with the biggest secret of all, the key to Dungeons Mastering...
...The secret is that you're in charge. This is not the telling-everyone-what-to-do sort of in charge. Rather, you get to decide how your player group is going to play this game, when and where the adventures take place, and what happens. You get to decide how the rules work, which rules to use, and how strictly to adhere to them...
...your primary role in the game is to create and present adventures in which other players can play their characters...

...one player needs to be the Storyteller - the person who creates and guides the stories...
...the Storyteller describes what happens to the characters as a result of what the players say and do. She decides if the characters succeed or fail, suffer or prosper, live or die...
...the Storyteller's primary duty is to make sure the other players have a good time. The way to do that is with a good tale. Unlike traditional storytellers, however, the Storyteller doesn't simply tell the story, instead, she must create the skeleton of the story and then let the players flesh it out by assuming the roles of its leading characters. Storytelling in Mage is a careful balance between narration and adjudication, between story and game. Sometimes, the Storyteller must set the scene or describe what occurs...
...but mostly she must decide what occurs in reaction to the words and actions of the characters - as realisitically, impartially, and creatively as possible...
...As a player in a Mage chronicle, you will take on the persona and role of a mage...
...whom you invent and then roleplay over the course of the story. The life of your character is in your hands, for you decide what the character says and does. You decide what risks to accept or decline...
...Characters are central to a story, for they alter and direct the plot; without characters you can't have a story. As the story flows, the characters, not the decisions of the Storyteller, direct and energize the progress of the plot
To some extent, you are a Storyteller as well as a player. You should feel free to add elements and ideas to the story, thought the Storyteller may accept or reject them as she sees fit. In the end, the story, not your character, is most important. The character is a tool for telling a good story.

When playing a roleplaying game, one player takes the parts of the director and author. This person, called a Game Master (GM for short) decides on the basic plot of the adventure. The GM describes the setting to the players. Each player creates his character, including powers, abilities, and personality. The player makes up dialogue on the spot...
...The GM acts out the roles of all the people the players encounter...
...in the course of the campaign, the players and the GM will have to decide on its "ground rules" - what the GM expects from the players and what the players expect from the GM. Real problems develop i campaigns where the GM provides no guidance as to what the ground rules are, and in campaigns where the PC's find that their own codes of behaviour clash with one another and the GM...
... once combat occurs, the GM takes over as referee, deciding what rules apply...
...the GM also plays the part of the opponents, deciding what actions they will take. The players respond as there characters would...
...the storyline or plot of the game is responsive to the playes decisions...
...The GM integrates the player's ideas and responses into the game. Ideally, a roleplaying game involves constant feedback between the players and the GM...

Consider roleplaying as Let's Pretend with rules. There is a referee, also called a GameMaster, who judges disputes. The GameMaster also sets the scenes and creates the story lines that the players experience through their characters. The characters are really the heart of the roleplaying game.
Each player takes the roles of one character, a participant in the great story being woven by the gamemaster, who plays the roles of all the other characters in the story, called gamemaster characters. The player characters' actions will directly affect that story, often changing the course of events in significant ways. The back-and-forth storytelling aspects...

I just reread my post, and I realize that my joking tone might come off as disrespectful towards Ron.

I want to let everyone know that I am not that stupid. <grin>

First of all, Ron has been wonderfully supportive to my trying to grasp and master the concepts here, and secondly; everything I have experienced of Ron's works shows great thought and experience.

That is not to say that I am 100% in agreement with everything I have read, of course ;)

I just hope my strongly worded ideas and bantering way doesn't make me come off sounding like a jerk.

And Ron, thanks for taking the time to help me figure this stuff out.

And thanks to everyone else who has helped also. :)

-Sindyr

I know that I am a nobody here and the Ron Edwards is

Sindyr wrote: As it stands, I understand the contradiction. If the story is taken to have its common meaning, then saying that "the GM is author of the story" is to say that the outcome of events is under control of the GM - which flatly denies the players the ability to make significant choices for their characters, preventing them from being able to "direct the actions of the protagonists."

• Next, Champions:

When playing a roleplaying game, one player takes the parts of the director and author. This person, called a Game Master (GM for short) decides on the basic plot of the adventure. The GM describes the setting to the players. Each player creates his character, including powers, abilities, and personality. The player makes up dialogue on the spot...
<snip>

Again, I think it is apparent that there is no inherent contradiction between the roles of GM and Player as Champions defines it. In fact, they go out of their way to help both "sides" avoid conflict in the first place.

So, again, TITBB is nowhere to be seen, and instead we have a perspective on the roles of GM and Player closer to TPTA.

Now, I am sure that one could seek and find a few games that DO maintain TITBB, especially if one looked in the bargain bin, but taking a sample of mainstream, published rpg's seem to indicate that whether or not TITBB is a contradiction or not, its simply not relevant.

They do say that the GM must create, guide, and instigate the events in the PC's lives; but they stop short of saying anything that would create a contradiction between the roles of GM and Player.

Alternatively, we are all only human. Therefore, I ask all of you to make room for the possibility that it may turn out that I am corrrect in all of this.

Whew! That's a heckuva long post, considering that I had stated I was going to be putting this topic on hold while dealing with other matters of rpg theory, but what can I say, Ron seduced me.

Now that's a mental picture that won't easily go away! <grin>

Mostly I want to wait for Ron's reply, but here is a quickie:

taalyn wrote:

As you've quoted it, I disagree that Champions is TPTA. The sentence "...one player takes the parts of the director and author. This person, called a Game Master ..." automatically assumes the GM is author, i.e. makes the decisions. The rest of the quote is description about how it's done, which is more TPTAish, but this doesn't contrdict the assumption of GM as author. Now, your citation doesn't say anything about the players having much say at all in defining game play, so it might not be TITBB, but if it does, it's Impossible. As it reads now, it's just biased to the GM, and players exist only subservient to his will ("God" as a nickname for the GM is particularly appropriate in this case).

Wow!

Look, everyone.

Sindyr (what's your name, anyway?) did the following:

1. Asked for clarification and tolerated a bunch of (often fascinating) wahoo until he got it.

2. Refined the concept and isolated a possible weakness, providing evidence.

3. Invented Forge jargon (well, initials anyway) to express all of the above.

I'm happy.

I'll be back in a couple days with some textual examples. Here are some to consider from your own library, if you got'em:

Shadowrun
Adventure scenarios for AD&D (you rightly note that the rulebooks are worth sweet fuck-all re: "how to play")
Call of Cthulhu
Adventure scenarios for Vampire

Kind of a busy weekend for me, so forgive the delay.

Best,
Ron

Ahoy, :)

Sindyr wrote: However, I think my problem is the following: The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast as defined above is, I think, a sort of straw man.

I'm assuming that, having heard a bit more about where Sindyr is at, Ron's "hold" on the thread no longer applies. If I'm wrong . . . well, (to keep the mood light here) I've survived the Wrath of Ron before. No guarantee I will again, but what is life without risk? (smile)

I'm gonna make this as quick as I can - I think the core of what Sindyr says is:

TPTA = The Possible Thing Anytime = The GM is the author of the world and the players direct the actions of the protagonists

I hope I don't complicate the issue, but...

The GM creates the story and players control the characters. We accept this is impossible.

The players control the characters, which creates the story. This is also impossible in the same fashion - it says the players create the story. As no two people (players) can create the story, this is also impossible.

The group creates the story. Still impossible, the GM is technically just another player, so this is exactly the same as the players creating the story.

So, who creates the damn story? Maybe the story is a collaborative effort based upon the decisions of all the players/GM. Ok fine, but now I've got to decide who is in control of what pieces, explain this to a new gamer, and not use jargon. So, for lack of a better word 'story' (including setting, NPC, and plot hooks) is the part the GM is in charge of, and the characters are the part the players are in charge of. Oh but wait, if someone decides that 'story' means the whole sequence of events including the character's decisions then that's impossible. But, what else have I got?

Anyway, I think I'm siding with Mr. Holmes on the Impossible Thing being a Nar/Sim issue because it all hinges on the definition of 'story'.


What does the impossible thing tell us, what do we gain from understanding it? That no two people can have full control of an individual game element, and if the game text doesn't clearly state how that control is apportioned a power struggle over authorship rights is likely to occur between the actual people at the gaming table. (wow, that was a run on). Shorter please, and with jargon this time: If Director stance rights are not clearly defined, dysfunction may arise.

So, I see Sindyr's point about it appearing to be a straw man, because The Impossible Thing is basically just a symantecs arguement. Seems like you could just state the issue clearly without latching it onto the traditional GM/Player relationship and having to agree on a definition of 'story' to support the arguement. Maybe The Impossible Thing isn't a straw man, but maybe the point is unnecessarily obfuscated.

Ron, I'm rather interested in how you see this. Sorcerer is on my reading list, but not yet read. My understanding is that narration rights are intentionally ambiguous in it - which could create the exact same problem that The Impossible Thing is warning us of.

JMendes wrote: Regardless of how you choose to interpret that particular paragraph, if you read the whole of the published material and objectively analyze it in a TITBB vs TPTA light, I think you'll find that the game not only acknowledges but actively encourages TITBB.

Sylus Thane wrote: As in Sindyr's post, a GM isn't really an author, but a coordinator and orchestrator of world events as effected by the players, protagonists/ characters.. Other than that they don't do anything else other than present opportunities for the Players to make decisions for or against. Now granted there are bad GMs out there guilty of railroading because they felt a player made the wrong decision and messed up their idea, but I think it's because they never truly considered their Responsibilities as a GM and what it is they are supposed to be keeping track of and doing.

And then J. S. Diamond wrote: A 'good' GM transmorphs the characters' decisions to fit the story. This maintains suspension of disbelief for the players who do not want to spoil the adventure.

Well said, MJ. I just deleted a post that said much the same thing that I had posted because I hadn't seen yours there.

I'd note that the main problem with Impossible Thing text is that the players may not agree with the GMs solution. If the GM decides to force, then the players are left powerless in terms of plot. If the GM decides to go "open" and the players are playing Sim, then play tends to be less dramatic, and less like a story, which some participants may not like. Remember many of these texts promise story as a result, and don't tell you what that means.

On the module thing, that's been pointed out quite a bit recently. I'd even add that the purchase cost of a published module goes a long way toward forcing players into a social contract that says that they'll subsume their own power desires so that the module will get played. This is the only way that I can see the monsterous, "At the Mountains of Madness" (400 pages, $40) ever gettin played as written.

Mike

M. J. Young wrote: The problem isn't that these things are wrong, or wrong ways to play. The problem is that each is a different interpretation of a text that doesn't say any of those things specifically, but actually specifically states something which (as Ralph has repeatedly pointed out) is inherently contradictory: that the referee is to maintain complete control over what happens in the adventure, and the players are to determine the destiny of their own characters.

Storytelling sounds like a lot to manage all at once, and it is at first. Fortunately, the Storyteller doesn't have to do it all at once. The secret to successful storytelling is, ironically, the work of the players. Fulfilling the expectations and interests of a chronicle's players is the first trick to creating the game's setting. Then -- if the chronicle and its overall story have been carefully developed -- the actions of the characters, both good and bad, will have consequences that in turn spawn further stories. Never forget: The more the players are involved with what happens in a chronicle, the less work you, the Storyteller, must take upon yourself. You aren't supposed to do it all alone. The Storyteller should have as much fun with the game as the players, and this chapter details how.

As a GM, you'll find it all too easy to get caught up in your story, the great story you've got planned out, and to make sure you tell that story -- no matter how many improbable plot twists you have to throw in or player actions you have to ignore to make sure that your story takes place. But the player characters are the focus of your story, and therefore they and their players are the most important elements in your story. You should slant the story to suit them, not the other way around. Learning how to do this, and do it well, is one of the hardest things about good GMing.

The first and most important thing to do is to plan stories which your players and PCs will want to participate in without having to drag them along by ring through their noses. ...

Second, learn to adapt your stories to the players' cool and interesting ideas. Many a GM rejects ideas that the players come up with in the middle of a story, simply because the players' idea is different from what he has in mind. It doesn't matter if the players' solution to the mystery or combat situation is as good as, or better than, his own; he's determined to follow through with his story, and damn the consequences. This is wrong. ...

if the chronicle and its overall story have been carefully developed

greyorm wrote: I'm sorry, I believe strongly in the Impossible Thing, mainly because I've seen it at work for many years in a game I was a part of.

greyorm wrote:

if the chronicle and its overall story have been carefully developed

This just screams "Impossible Thing" to me, John. After all, if the chronicle and its overall story (which apriori must be a series of events (leaving out for the moment whether those events are preplanned or unplanned)) have been carefully developed, the players really do have no control over the actual results, no matter what their decisions are.

Why? Because you as GM cannot carefully plan a series of unplanned events. You can only carefully plan a series of planned events.

greyorm wrote: I'm sorry, I believe strongly in the Impossible Thing, mainly because I've seen it at work for many years in a game I was a part of. The GM believed he was creating a story for us to work through, and we all believed that we were free to do as we wanted and explore his world.

But we weren't. We were roped into scene after scene showcasing the unfolding plotline of his story -- and at some points our lack of ability to influence the end result no matter what we did was really blatant.

greyorm wrote: John, what is missing from the above quotes you've given are the statements made to the players:
You are free to explore the world.
You are free to go where you wish and do as you wish.

M. J. Young wrote:

Sylus Thane wrote:
The problem isn't that these things are wrong, or wrong ways to play. The problem is that each is a different interpretation of a text that doesn't say any of those things specifically, but actually specifically states something which (as Ralph has repeatedly pointed out) is inherently contradictory: that the referee is to maintain complete control over what happens in the adventure, and the players are to determine the destiny of their own characters.
--M. J. Young

I've never seen a game that states this. Where does it say that the GM maintains *complete* control over what happens in the adventure? If so, then, yeah, I agree that's contradictory--but taken to a logical extreme the reader would then say "but Joe, you can't open your mouth--the GM must speak for your character."

Since nobody does say this, I still don't believe it. And even if it does, it's so obviously un-true to *the very, very, very vast majority of roleplaying* as to be easily discounted.

-Marco

Okay, again I am starting to get a little overwhelmed with replies, but I get that's the way public forums works... although I feel a little like a guy in a room full off people, and they're all talking to me at once...

I will try not to let this devolve into noise and cross posting...

As there is a lot to reply too, I will try to <snip> out the parts of quotations that are not relevant to what I am referencing or the parts that we are not in disagreement over, but if I should happen to snip something that bears on the discussion, I apologize and ask that you reintroduce any such snippage back into the thread...

Ron Edwards said:

Sindyr (what's your name, anyway?) did the following:
<snip>
I'll be back in a couple days with some textual examples. Here are some to consider from your own library, if you got'em:

Shadowrun
Adventure scenarios for AD&D (you rightly note that the rulebooks are worth sweet fuck-all re: "how to play")
Call of Cthulhu
Adventure scenarios for Vampire

Kind of a busy weekend for me, so forgive the delay.

Best,
Ron

Behind the scenes is where you find the person who makes the game happen. In other words, the gamemaster. The gamemaster has many functions, including creating adventures, roleplaying NPC's, and mediating rules and other formalities of play...
A good gamemaster is always open to discussion about how the rules work, but when he makes his decision, it's final...
That sounds like the gamemaster has absolute power, but it really depends on how much power your players are willing to give you. If the players don't like the way you run your game, they won't play it with you. On the other hand, if you don't like the way they play the game, you won't run it for them...

Ahoy, :)

Sindyr wrote:

However, I think my problem is the following: The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast as defined above is, I think, a sort of straw man.

Hmm... Interesting angle. Ok, the paragraphs you quoted may tend to lean towards TPTA more than TITBB. However...
<snip>
The various DMGs out there invariably have a few excerpts about how to structure a scenario. Also, regardless of your opinion about published modules, the accurately reflect the spirit in which DD is written. Which is to say: "players, there is a story, deal with it".

it doesn't appear that D&D is claiming that the players have any ability in their rpg to do anything else than play the game as the GM (DM) defines it, so D&D apparently does NOT hold to TITBB.

Regardless of how you choose to interpret that particular paragraph, if you read the whole of the published material and objectively analyze it in a TITBB vs. TPTA light, I think you'll find that the game not only acknowledges but actively encourages TITBB.
<snip>
In conclusion, like so many others, I guess what I am saying is that your dismissal of TITBB is nothing but a means of successfully resolving the issue by sidestepping it.
<snip>

The GM is the author of the story and the players direct the actions of the protagonists.

The GM is the author of the story and the players direct the actions of the protagonists according to the will of the GM

<snip>
The insights from TITBB are still very, very valid. Because that silly GM's world can get all in the way of the ability of the players to portray their characters as protagonists, and those pesky players insisting on protagonizing their characters can cause all kinds of grief for what the GM thought he was going to do with his world.

Still, since this definition (by my understanding and rephrasing) leaves the all-important question of who's in charge of the Story still out there (and free to answered as "EVERYONE is in charge of the Story"), it's not Impossible. But it's still quite tricky to pull off. If the GM gets too stuck on being THE Author of the world, not allowing the players to substantially and significantly impact even those assumptions the GM thought were fundamental to "his" world, that's going stifle the player-creation of Story and we're back to Impossible. Or if the player goes into "my guy" mode ("I decided this is what my guy would do and you can't do anything to get me to say different!") whenever the GM tries to throw plot and etc. at their character, the GM now can't participate in creating Story and we are, again, finding it Impossible to create Story as a group.

So . . . everything we learn from identifying TITBB still applies, Sindyr's TPTA just provides an opening where it is just-barely, literally POSSIBLE for everyone to be involved in creating a Story.
But if you actually want to make it LIKELY that the group can create a Story together, you might want to make that GM hold on the World even looser, and find some ways for players to really actively protagonize their characters. Though tastes will vary as to when this can be taken TOO far . . .
Or alternatively, you can just stop worrying about creating a Story (what's so great about it anyhow?), and then it hardly matters if it's Impossible.
Sindyr, I hope that's clear - as in, I hope I explained myself clearly. No doubt someone will come along and write a better summary, but - while I think you're right, what you're describing is NOT an Impossible thing, neither does it avoid (just in itself) all the issues that TITBB raises.
Gordon

<snip>
The problem isn't that these things are wrong, or wrong ways to play. The problem is that each is a different interpretation of a text that doesn't say any of those things specifically, but actually specifically states something which (as Ralph has repeatedly pointed out) is inherently contradictory: that the referee is to maintain complete control over what happens in the adventure, and the players are to determine the destiny of their own characters. Those are inherently incompatible. The referee cannot have absolute control of how the game is going to end while ceding absolute control over what the protagonists are going to do to someone else.

<snip>These are all ways to respond to the text. They share this in common:
"The text is stating something impossible, so it doesn't mean that, and it must mean something else; I think this is what it means."
The text doesn't mean any one of those things. It means something that is inherently impossible. We intuitively recognize that, and replace it with something that works for us.

The reason we even discuss The Impossible Thing is so that, as game designers, we can remember not to say that in our games; even better, so that we can explain in our games what the division of credibility is supposed to be, whether it's supposed to be participationism or module style or band analogy or something else entirely.

When we talk about The Impossible Thing, what we're saying is, if you are writing rules for a game, don't tell people that the players control everything the main characters do and the referee controls everything that happens in the world and where the story goes. If the referee controls where the story goes, the power of the players is rendered meaningless.

Sindyr has culled quotes from several games to support a contention that games actually espouse his division of credibility.

<snip>
There seems to be a growing consensus regarding TPTA that this is what is intended in most game texts and the way most games are played. That may be representative of many games, but I think it's neither the only common interpretation of the texts nor the only valid way to play.
However, I'll await Ron's comments; I know he has citations for The Impossible Thing, and it would be better to wait for them.

I hope this helps.

--M. J. Young

Sindyr wrote: Can I ask that one, possibly two people be "elected" to continue this discussion with me and bladamson? Perhaps Ron Edwards?

This discussion has been interesting, and I think my experience has something to add. Take it as you will, but I will admit there is a strong bias toward accepting the Impossible Thing theory because it resonantes with many of my experiences.

Not too long ago, I'd gotten involved with a gaming troupe that played several World of Dakrness games. Although at the time I did not have the vocabulary to express what I intuited, their roleplaying orientation was extremely Simulationist. They wanted plot and characters to "fit" the setting as much as possible. To them, there was a right and wrong way to play certain types of characters, which was determined by the setting. Their roleplaying goals, it seems, was to give an accurate representation of their characters as it relates to the setting and to follow the GM's plot because of the nature of these characters. For instance, in a Werewolf game, if the pack becomes aware of Wyrm activity and deliberates on how to best defeat it, it would be bad form for a character to question this course of action or even decide not to fight it. If this character questioned the entire werewolf cosmology, that would be unacceptable. After all, werewolfs were designed to fight the Wyrm. A werewolf who does not fight the Wyrm is not a werewolf. They got along great. And then, a monkeywrench was thrown into the program.

I, on the other hand, had a different view. The text was merely a springboard of ideas. I saw everything as malleable and subject to interpretation, especially from my character's point of view. It was the themes of the game that made it what it was. My roleplaying goal was to explore a premise or a theme, and I used my characters as an instrument to do so.

Needless to say, I often felt bored and uninspired because I felt the GM wasn't trying to fit my character into the game. Part of this is my fault, of course, because I had assumed that the GM's job was to intuit and anticipate what the players would be interested in doing, or simply ask. However, I had not expressed my need to be assisted in articulating my goals for my character (as opposed to my character's goals). Oftentimes, I would feel myself hooked to a particular theme, and in a vain effort to try to get more theme-oriented play, made several characters related to that theme. All that came of it was me being accused of playing "the same character" (though backgrounds and personalties were vastly different). I became increasingly more alienated because I felt I was being criticized for interpreting the text in a different way. I was even told, point blank by one of the players, that I was wrong for seeing the text a certain way.

On top of that, I felt the group was criticizing me because I incorporated some of my life experiences and interests in the characters I made. If I have spent some time in Korea, and if I have close friends who are Korean, how can I not make a Korean character? If I am a gay Latino man, how could I not make characters whose backgrounds and attitudes are influenced by issues facing homosexuals and Latinos? Why is it wrong make a character often seen as "the enemy"and try to deal with and understand things from their perspective? When I make a character, I generally don't do it to explain and make statements. I use a character to raise questions, and I (foolishly) expected the other players and the GM to understand this and incorporate it into the plot of the story. I don't play rapists, wife beaters, racists, or serial killers for the wicked titillation of it all, or for the angsty goodness. When I do this, I am trying to understand something about human nature, asking (and sometimes trying to answer) the issue of whether or not we have free will and in what circumstances we do or do not have the power of choice. Pretty heavy stuff. Hard to do when the people around you roleplay mainly to escape these ideas.

Eventually, I became frustrated with the assumption that there is only one way to view a game and one way to play. For reasons unrelated to this, I was booted from the game, and while I was very peeved at the time (I felt I was being punished for what someone else was doing), now I'm sort of over it.

How does this relate to the Impossible Thing? Mostly, it only comes up when two people do not interpret the text the same way. For most players, when the text says, "Your characters make the story. You have complete control over them," they do not see a contradiction with the line to GMs that their responsibility is to create a story. Why? Because for them there is an implicit add-on to the first statement. They read it as, "Your characters make the story. You have complete control over them within the confines of the setting and major plot elements as defined by the GM." Some players, though, begin to see the contradiction when disagreements arise over who has ultimate control over the direction of the game. Are the players participators in the GM's plot and setting, or is the GM a facilitator for the players' goals, who creates setting and plot around the players. I think what is missing from most RPG texts are direct statements as to who has control and when. Under what conditions do the GM's wishes override individual players'? How do we make sure all the players are on the same page regarding each character's and the GM's role in the story?

I guess this means that English majors as players in a roleplaying game full of non-English majors makes for a rough ride.

It sounds like you definately came up against a problem.

What I wonder is, was it a problem with other people in the game (incl the GM), or a problem in the rpg and it's text?

I am guessing from what you said that it was the former.

But did the game system you were playing actually say TITBB?

I am guessing not - but if so, please type in the exact text of the section of rules from the game text that does, and note which game and which edition it is. Please make sure to include any surrounding text that is needed for putting things in context. Thanks.

-Sindyr

Green wrote: I guess this means that English majors as players in a roleplaying game full of non-English majors makes for a rough ride.

Sindyr wrote: It sounds like you definately came up against a problem.

What I wonder is, was it a problem with other people in the game (incl the GM), or a problem in the rpg and it's text?

I am guessing from what you said that it was the former.

But did the game system you were playing actually say TITBB?

I am guessing not - but if so, please type in the exact text of the section of rules from the game text that does, and note which game and which edition it is. Please make sure to include any surrounding text that is needed for putting things in context. Thanks.

-Sindyr

Green said:

What if I want to create a character that challenges or at least illustrates the idea that werewolves must work together? Or, better yet, what if the Storyteller wants to address this idea? Who decides what fits? Is fiting in more important than creating a dynamic, interesting story? In what situations do the players' desires override the Storyteller's? It seems that in creating a story, a lot of compromise is needed, but there is little advice on how and when to compromise, and which aspect of the game takes precedence when things come to a snitch. The Impossible Thing, I believe, implies that in most RPGs, there is a tendency of most RPGs to treat character and story as distinct and separate. However, when you actually play, you see the fallibility of the idea. If you say that characters make the story, you cannot also say that the characters ruin the story. Now, the story may be more or less enjoyable for the players based on what the characters do, but there is story is not an entity separate from the characters.

I never argued that the text is contradictory. I believe the contradiction comes in with people's interpretation of the text. It's not so simple as reading on page 5 that Margaret has blue hair and then reading on that same page that Margaret has red hair. The texts of RPGs are often more vague when it comes to describing who has authority over the story. It is that vagueness which is the problem, not anything explicitly contradictory.

Consider Dungeons and Dragons. In the game, it explicitly states that the GM has final authority over the course of the game as well as the interpretation of the rules. However, it also says that if GMs want a game that will be fun for the players, the players' wishes and concerns should be taken into account when making a decision. "Yes, you can do that," the DM's guide implies, "but if you want to keep your players, we suggest you don't." In games such as Vampire, there is still a question about who has the final authority in the game. Who determines who does what and when? Who determines the parameters of the story? Who decides what is approrpiate for a story and what isn't? Which takes greater precedence, theme or setting, character or plot, making a story plausible or making a story interesting? What elements do we focus on? I mainly see the Impossible Thing as at least two parties reading the same text and coming up with different conclusions which aren't compatible. In this case, the question is: Whose interpretation do we use, and why? Of course, in many games, they just go with majority rules, but what if there is an even split? It is these sorts of questions that the Impossible Thing addresses, albeit in much more elevated language than I prefer to use.

I guess I am not really disagreeing with you, in general terms.

My only point of issue has been with the TITBB, which seems to accuse most rpg's of being contradictory.

You believe that contradiction comes in with people's interpretation of the text, and that the texts can sometimes be vague.

Well, I can't help but mostly agree with you here, too. I would venture to guess that the majority of conflict of the roles of GM and players comes not from the rulebooks' text, but from the players and GM's..

I would go further and say that I think this issue is not rules related, but psychology related. That many times the apparent power of a GM goes to his head, and he begins to use the player's as extras in a story he controls, usually in direct opposition to what the games' rulebooks advise.

As fas as the rulesbooks being too vague, I think a certain amount of vagueness is unavoidable on two accounts. First, most of these games write the "What is roleplaying" section for total newbies, because someone who wasn't a total newbie would tend to skip that part. Therefore, that section tends to be dumbed-down and presented in the gaming equivalence of "baby-talk"
Secondly, many games try to present their material artistically, with flair. These stylistic ways of presenting rules can actually sometimes obfuscate what they are trying to get across. However, most of these games come from a stand point that if you write a gamebook that is as dry and flavorless as a technical manual, few will buy it.

Nevertheless, it seems that the more "dumbed-down" and "artsy" the text becomes, the more context is given to correctly interpret the text.

From the texts that I have seen so far, while there may be a little vagueness, anyone looking for the main points can find them without having to be an english major. :)

Ultimately, a group will have to achieve consensus about how to play. Ultimately, the GM has the power to make quite a few decisions, but a GM that abuses that power winds up with no players.

Regardless of the above truths, it does not seems to me that the rpg rulebooks are advocating contradictory things, or even things that can easily be taken as contradictory, if you take things in the context in which they are presented.

You are, of course, welcome to present specific examples to the contrary.

-Sindyr

Really trying to keep it short this time - Sindyr, I understand your request to keep the communicators to a minimum, so it's fine by me if you just read this bit and wait for Ron (or whoever) before you reply. But Ron warned us he's busy this weekend, and that last big message of yours is really very clear and provides a great opening for (to me) two important comments:

First of all, it seems to me like one of your main points is that TITBB isn't claimed by all that many game books. I'm not going to argue that point - I haven't done the analysis - but I will say that when it came up as a topic of conversation here (or even back at GO, I forget when Ron et al first started discussing it), I *immediately* recognized something that virtually every gaming group I'd ever been in believed. I'm not trying to "defeat" your argument by an appeal to personal experience, just explain why I feel TITBB is a real thing, not a straw man.

Second, let me grab a quote:

Finally, I believe that if one employs TPTA, one will completely avoid the player/GM power struggle that this whole thread has been about. As long as each side stays within their Domain, the conflict is avoided. If either abridges the Domain of the other, sure, we are back where we started, but that abridgement would be the point of departure from TPTA.

Sindyr wrote: I contrarily believe that most rpg's do one of three things: ..., use "story" to mean "world", ...

John Kim wrote: I think you're stretching here. You just concluded that "have been carefully developed" (passive voice; verb "developed") means "has been pre-planned by the GM alone without any allowance for deviation from that plan". This despite the fact that all of the sentences around it say the opposite.

Marco wrote: even if it does, it's so obviously un-true to *the very, very, very vast majority of roleplaying* as to be easily discounted.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: there are GMs of both types, who read the same text but decided to do things differently.

We can delve through minutiae about how the GM advice text is phrased, but really I think that the difference comes more from the personality of the GMs and their own ideas. They ran things that way primarily because they wanted to, not because it was written in some essay.

Well, this is a two-edged sword. If you can cite this as evidence, then I can cite all of my anecdotal evidence of GMs who did give the players the ability to change the plot.

I can't find any such quote for either Vampire or Champions. If you could cite it, please do so. As far as I see, what is told to Vampire players is the same as what is told to the Storytellers -- that the Storyteller invents the dramatic arc, while the players direct and influence the action within that framework.

Correct me if I'm wrong...

The point of contention isn't whether or not The Impossible Thing is impossible (everyone agrees it is), or even whether game texts should state authorship rights more clearly (which they should), but that games don't actually say The Impossible Thing as it is defined.

Or to put it another way, the definition of The Impossible Thing is committing (I can't believe I'm going to use this word) synecdoche - mistaking the game designer's use of the word story/plot/author for something more inclusive than was intended.

For example,

greyorm wrote: "Oh, the GM makes a story and you play it"

bladamson wrote: I think just you had the misfortune of being in a group of what I will term (and prepare to be flamed for) "sterotypical WW gamers". Been there. They don't have any distinction between player and character, at least the ones around here don't. Blah.

Man, you should hear what developers say about our stereotypical customers. :)

greyorm wrote:

We can delve through minutiae about how the GM advice text is phrased, but really I think that the difference comes more from the personality of the GMs and their own ideas. They ran things that way primarily because they wanted to, not because it was written in some essay.

I utterly and completely disagree. Yes, personality has something to do with it, but if the text wasn't so unclear on this point, then these personality differences would have a lot less to do with the way games engaging in the Impossible Thing are run.

To give textual excerpts from one of Ron's cited examples: Call of Cthulhu (5th Ed, copyright 1992). Where the term "investigator" appears it is coterminous with Player Character, similarly Keeper is parallel to Games Master.

p9, subsection headed Players: "A player has a duty to roleplay an investigator within the limits of the investigator's personality and abilities. That is the point of roleplaying.... Try to develop the investigator's personality well enough that the other players can imagine what he or she would do in a specific situation. "Good old Al," they'll say, "we knew he'd do that.""

From the chapter About Investigators: p18 "Always create characters who you can enthusiastically roleplay"; p23 "It goes without saying that your [investigator] could be very different from what's written here" p25 "What schools were attended?" Who are the investigator's family? What is the investigator like?"

p.74, from the box-out headed Scenerio Structure: "1 A mystery or crisis is posed.... 2 The investigators become linked to the problem.... 3 The investigators attempt to define the mystery.... 4 The investigators use the evidence to confront the danger"

p. 160 from the Scenerios chapter "Having played these adventures, new keepers can plan their own creations."

p.161, The Edge of Darkness: "The investigators are all friends, relatives, past students or former collegues of the man. The exact relationship of each investigator must be decided ahead of time by the keeper and should involve some close personal bond and reason for trust."

from various parts of the scenerio chapter: p.163 "Investigators may do as they wish but certainly one of them will want to read Rupert's journal"; p174 "Suspecting Mythos activity, the investigators decide to drive to Vermont and inspect the situation"; "the Packard and Joey Larson always get away. Encourage pursuing investigators to return to the Blue Heaven and see what's happened."; p182 "No matter how quickly the investigators figure this out, Leroy Turner always beats them to the cemetary."

I can no longer keep up with this thread. I asked that the volume be kept down so that I could have a "conversation" with one or two people about this, but everyone is talking at once.

However, even though I started this topic most recently, I realize that I do not have any right to demand my needs be catered to.

So, I guess I am stuck at my original position.
For now, I am going to have to go with TITBB being true but irrelevant since most gamebooks do not advocate TITBB.

I do not feel completely comfortable that I am right, but there are too many and too meaty responses for me to be able to wade through all at once. The helpful replies have turned into an avalanche of noise, and I am buried under it.

So for now, this is it. Perhaps in the future, I will open a line of private dialogue with some people here. Perhaps I should have started with that.

So for now, unless someone has any good ideas to fix the overwhelming wall of replies that I am faced with, this is me heading out.

If anyone wants to send me any private correspondence, feel free to do so. If I get overwhelmed by private correspondence, then I will pick one or two to engage with, and upon finishing the conversation with them, return to the next one or two.

Sorry, I just can't keep up with or handle having conversations with seven people all at once.

-Sindyr

Sindyr wrote: I can no longer keep up with this thread. I asked that the volume be kept down so that I could have a "conversation" with one or two people about this, but everyone is talking at once.

greyorm wrote:
You can't do the Impossible Thing...it's impossible! But it seems a lot of the discussion is involved in trying to disprove it via example of it not occurring. Marco appears to make this mistake in his post:

Marco wrote: even if it does, it's so obviously un-true to *the very, very, very vast majority of roleplaying* as to be easily discounted.

But of course it doesn't occur: it can't!

Wow Marco, of all of the people who aren't getting in these threads you are the one person who is working overtime to make sure you don't get it. Perhaps it is because you have already decided to dismiss the idea as non existant that you aren't hearing what people are saying.

Case in point

"THE GM has complete control over the story. The players make no difference. No player choices should be allowed. Oh yes, and it's still their story--a story developed by the players."

Furthermore: TIP was originally brought into being as the fatal flaw for games like 7th Sea and VtM. If the true meaning is "let the PC choices be important" then I think some people (although not, interestingly enough Ron--whom I think has been fairly clear recently) are ret-conning TIP

Show me a mandate in black and white in a major game that flat out says: Don't EVER let the players make important decisions--but it's still *their* story. If you do, I'll quite glady agree it's a paradox. Until I see that--and it's gotta be a major game that influenced your role-playing beliefs--I think it's reading too much into a poor analogy

Thank you, Ralph.
Marco, for the record, "What Ralph said."

Sindyr,

To me it comes down to this. While your interperetations of the text in question do not see TIP, that does not mean that others do not see it. We have only anecdotal evidence to present, but that evidence says that there are people who have interpereted games, that you see as quite clearly not TIP, as TIP.

Now, perhaps that's the participant's fault for not realizing that they were going to run into problems with their "faulty" interperetations (assuming that they actually are faulty, and you're not just mentally correcting the text). But that doesn't change the fact that there are better ways to write these texts so that these "misinterperetations" do not occur.

You very much seem to have the attitude that, "well, it's not a problem for me, so how could it be a problem for anyone else?" But the obvious answer is that players play differently.

As far as that anecdotal evidence, I profer exhibit A, that being bladamson's and Bruce Baugh's comments about "stereotypical WW players." Where does this stereotype come from? These are exactly the people that are apparently not interpereting the text "correctly". One could argue that they are informed by play of other systems, but then those systems must have similar flaws for them to have gotten the opinion that this is the "correct" way to play.

Blaming it on the players is to say that we as designers can do nothing to change the status quo. That the "stereotypical player" is to blame for all the bad play. But I for one would like to believe that we can do better as designers. And this is one small are where we can improve.

I'll cut this short here, and not go into the other ramifications (as this is just the tip of the iceberg, really), some of which I've touched on before.

Mike

Excuse me while I leap to CoC's defence. I know you're not realy having a go at CoC, but I also think you go a bit too far in trying to make your point. I hope this is helpfull in the contexts of the overall discussion.

Ian Charvill wrote:

Quote:
From the chapter About Investigators: p18 "Always create characters who you can enthusiastically roleplay"; p23 "It goes without saying that your [investigator] could be very different from what's written here" p25 "What schools were attended?" Who are the investigator's family? What is the investigator like?"

Not only is the personality of the investigator listed as being the property of the player (with the exception of Sanity, which is explicitly tied to a mechanic) the invention of "Deep Background" is indicated as a part of a players responsibility both in character creation and in play.

Quote:
from various parts of the scenerio chapter: p.163 "Investigators may do as they wish but certainly one of them will want to read Rupert's journal"; p174 "Suspecting Mythos activity, the investigators decide to drive to Vermont and inspect the situation"; "the Packard and Joey Larson always get away. Encourage pursuing investigators to return to the Blue Heaven and see what's happened."; p182 "No matter how quickly the investigators figure this out, Leroy Turner always beats them to the cemetary."

Pretty plainly, these dictate investigator actions, tell the keeper to influence investigator actions and render investigator actions irrelevent. Nowhere in the text players are supposed to read does it tell them this goes on; nowhere does it make explicit to keepers that they will be confounding player expectations (you can argue that the advice is perfectly valid from an Illusionist perspective).

Actually, CoC is a bad example because it is MEANT to be railroaded by the GM...that's the fun in it! It's pure Illusionist gaming. Now if the point is that CoC's text is unclear about this, and makes it seem as though it is not, then yes, that holds.

Yeah, I strongly agree with Raven.

I consider CoC pretty clear in this regard. If the text isn't perfectly clear (and I think it's pretty close, actually), then the adventures make it really obvious. CoC adventures are all written, "Then the characters do this, then the characters do that." They're rarely given any choices at all, and the writing's not even couched in such a way as to allow such an interperetation. Reading a CoC adventure, you become quite aware that the style indicated is very strong GM control of the flow of events.

Occasionally you'll encounter a CoC adventure that is more "dungeon" style, in that it'll be a location that the characters can rummage through for clues. But keep in mind that this style, while less restricive in action moment to moment is very restricted in overall terms. You can't leave the "dungeon" and still be playing the adventure (and yes, the library in town is part of the CoC "dungeon", or more analogous to the temple in town or something). The point is that the player never has control of what sort of issues are being addressed primarily. I even remember one CoC adventure where the GM is supposed to tell one of the players that the "damsel in distress" is an old girlfriend. Cool hook. No player control.

But that's all quite functional. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I've enjoyed such adventures immensely. Early games like CoC never promised a story. Not in any sense, nor did most people playing at the time CoC came out (1981) think that such was even possible in RPGs. Note the use of "Adventure" and "scenario" repeatedly, but never story. Think something more like a wargame (yes, even for early CoC).

In any case what the prescribed method of play is comes across well in the text. The GM has a plot. The players follow that plot, and do their best to do "realistic" portrayals of their characters by demonstrating the character's personality and background along the way.

What you have at the time approaching the advent of WW, is a movement away from this, and a felt desire for something where the players participate in creating a story. Thus the TITBB paradigm was created. They were satisfying an urge, but just not describing how to do it well.

Mike

greyorm wrote: Actually, CoC is a bad example because it is MEANT to be railroaded by the GM...that's the fun in it! It's pure Illusionist gaming. Now if the point is that CoC's text is unclear about this, and makes it seem as though it is not, then yes, that holds.

Mike Holmes wrote: But that's all quite functional. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I've enjoyed such adventures immensely. Early games like CoC never promised a story. Not in any sense, nor did most people playing at the time CoC came out (1981) think that such was even possible in RPGs. Note the use of "Adventure" and "scenario" repeatedly, but never story. Think something more like a wargame (yes, even for early CoC).

In any case what the prescribed method of play is comes across well in the text. The GM has a plot. The players follow that plot, and do their best to do "realistic" portrayals of their characters by demonstrating the character's personality and background along the way.

Mike Holmes wrote: What you have at the time approaching the advent of WW, is a movement away from this, and a felt desire for something where the players participate in creating a story. Thus the TITBB paradigm was created. They were satisfying an urge, but just not describing how to do it well.

All very true, John. Yes, another genre of game written like CoC would not have worked as well.

And I wasn't going to bring up Ars, because it has the potential to be a real trouble spot. But certainly, one could see VtM as backtracking a bit. OTOH, Ars certainly puts a lot of power in the GMs hands in other ways. One might argue that GM control over the effects of Improvised spells could be seen as tremendously rife with potential to "deprotagonize" characters.

But, Ars was certainly an early entrant into the race.

Mike

It's great the evryone loves Cthulhu!

I think it might be helpful to seperate the idea of whether a game is good or not from whether any of its text suggests The Impossible Thing. A single, or even a few, pieces of bad advice don't make a bad game.

We're getting dangerously close to "I like game X therefore it can't suggest The Impossible Thing because that would make it a bad game, and I wouldn't like a bad game."

Are their special Forge Points [tm] for using the word synecdoche in as post?

Ian Charvill wrote: It's great the evryone loves Cthulhu!

I think it might be helpful to seperate the idea of whether a game is good or not from whether any of its text suggests The Impossible Thing. A single, or even a few, pieces of bad advice don't make a bad game.

John, this may be just a difference between us in how we're interpreting the idea that players can control their character's actions. I'd argue if the players can control their characters actions in any meaningful sense that will affect the plot. If the players can't make choices that will affect the plot, they can't control their character's actions in a meaningful sense.

I think this not only holds true from a narrativist perspective but also from a simulationist perspective (outside of a deterministic universe).

YMMV

Ian, as phrased, that suggests that you think it would be impossible to actually roleplay a character in a Marxist or Calvinist universe, where by definition they do not get to affect the greater movement of things. But since I, at least, often write things with unintended implications, I'm asking about it: do you regard player control of the character's psyche and internal life as impossible in circumstnaces where fate is determined by outside forces?

I bring this up because I've seen very interesting games where the issue is "How do we respond to this thing we cannot change?"

Ian Charvill wrote: John, this may be just a difference between us in how we're interpreting the idea that players can control their character's actions. I'd argue if the players can control their characters actions in any meaningful sense that will affect the plot. If the players can't make choices that will affect the plot, they can't control their character's actions in a meaningful sense.

Bruce Baugh wrote: Ian, as phrased, that suggests that you think it would be impossible to actually roleplay a character in a Marxist or Calvinist universe, where by definition they do not get to affect the greater movement of things. But since I, at least, often write things with unintended implications, I'm asking about it: do you regard player control of the character's psyche and internal life as impossible in circumstnaces where fate is determined by outside forces?

I bring this up because I've seen very interesting games where the issue is "How do we respond to this thing we cannot change?"

John Kim wrote: The players control their characters' actions, and the GM controls the world and results -- but both need to stay within limits set by the social contract. It is entirely clear that in CoC, the GM defines the plot for the adventure: i.e. what the investigators are to do. The players determine how they attempt to overcome the challenges presented. By the social contract, the GM is expected to present fair and interesting challenges. The players are expected to attempt to solve them. If their actions are intelligent and their luck reasonable, they should succeed (though perhaps with losses). If they make foolish choices they could fail and/or die. In this sense, players do affect the plot.

Ian Charvill wrote:

Bruce Baugh wrote: Could 'A Bridge Too Far' form the basis of an enjoyable role playing session? Isn't striving in the face of certain defeat a kind of heroism?

My most recent, personal confrontation with this issue: Charnel Gods.

I'm still not sure how much of this I can personally enjoy, but "some" is fun/rewarding. An exact, or even closely-approximate value for "some" is not yet defined.

Gordon

quot;John KimWell, conversely, it seems to me that come people are influenced by the logic of "I like the players to control the plot -- therefore any text which suggests that the GM controls it is illogical and contradictory".