This has grown out of the Is Director Stance Real? thread.

To recap, Ron Edwards posted:

I disagree, mainly because I see both Author and Actor Stances as being highly nuanced as well, independently.

Hi Jack,

Thanks for starting this one up.

I agree with you that Director Stance is "broader" than the other two Stances. What I don't see is any reason for concern.

Basically, it breaks down as follows:
Actor = player is "in character's head" and can affect only the character's body
Author = player is not "in character's head" and can affect only the character's body
Director = player is not "in character's head" and can affect the character's environment/circumstances

So there it is. The relative "power" of each Stance is certainly increasing from Actor to Director. However, and I'm sure of this, the emotional payoff of each Stance varies with the priorities of the player.

I'm not perturbed by the different "ranges" of the Stances. I recall when one person was perturbed by the disproportionate representation of G, N, and S focuses of game design, historically, and I found that odd - why would we expect 33.33% for each? I have the same reaction to the observation that the Stances cover different ranges of influence.

Best,
Ron

P.S. I hope everyone can see that by "player," above, I am referring to any role-playing participant (GM/player distinction is irrelevant). Also, no mention is made of YOUR character; add "co" to any Stance if you see fit.

It's a cause for concern because the facets of director stance are an underexplored facet of a game in play as well as game design.

It may be too soon to tell if this really is an area worth exploring since designers are only just starting to play with it.

Let's start with some examples.

Traditionally, the GM hold most or all of the directoral power.

The Wheel is nothing but director stance, with author thrown in. The power mostly goes to the player running the scene with the other players buying that power with tokens. Without using a toke, the other players are stuck in the "camera stance" I've called audience stance before and have since thought better of it. This is sort of how it works in SOAP.

The Pool uses director stance as a reward for a successful roll. IIUC.

Or so I understand it for these games. Anyone else?

I'm curious. If Director Stance grants a player the ability to affect the environment/circumstances relative to the player, how do we characterize a Stance where a player can in the same manner, exercise Directorial Power over another character's environment/circumstances, even though our player-director's character is entirely offstage?

Is this a different stance (viz. Audience Stance), or should we broaden the definition of Director Stance?

Best,

Blake

Blake,

I've taken a lot of pains in the last couple of threads to specify that Stances are about any character, not about one's own character. Proprietorship is clearly shared in role-playing far more than any rulebooks admit, up to and including Director applications.

So maybe I should state it here in no uncertain terms: Stance is easily applied to ANY character in play, WITHOUT any "my character" limitations at all. Such limitations may secondarily occur due to game rules or group standards, but they are modifications, not definitional.

Once that was established in the other threads, a lot of what people were thinking would be Audience stuff turned out to be Director or Author stuff about characters besides their own.

Best,
Ron

If thats the case, Ron, than Lumpley's "Does Director Stance really exist" question is even more valid.

Consider:

I originally believed Author stance is using "out of head" stuff to make decisions about MY character.

If instead I can make decisions about YOUR character too, then that would pretty much be identical with makeing decisions about the GM's character (aka NPC's).

If I'm now able to use metagame concerns to influence decisions about my PC, other PCs, or NPCs then it really isn't that big of a stretch to also include pretty much anything else also.

There really ISN'T a need for Director Stance to cover using metagame concerns to influence decisions about "environment"...as far as level of power over the game is concerned, its all pretty much equivelent whether we're talking about inventing an important physical clue at the scene of a crime, or causeing an NPC or other PC to give up the clue in an interrogation. The distinction is one of nuance at best.

If this is a vote, I for one would limit Author Power to using metagame to affect only my character, and use Directoral Power to describe using metagame to affect anything else (including other characters).

If instead we're locked into the idea that Author Power includes other characters than we should just through Director out the window entirely and use Lumpley's Stance vs a Target idea to differentiate Authoring my PC from Authoring the environment.

Thanks for the input, Ron. I understand where you're coming from now.

Valamir, I see Author power as being purely related to decision-making, but not exercising environmental control. Director power, on the other hand, deals explicitly with affecting the setting. Consequently, I see an easy separation here. My bug has been whether Directorial power is character-centered or not, and Ron answered that for me in his last post. Audience Stance doesn't readily convey a use of story-altering power, in my opinion, so I'm happy to stick with Director Stance to describe this modality.

Best,

Blake

Hey All.

I like Ron's solution more and more. If I understand it. May I?

Actor Stance - making decisions about [X] based only on in-game considerations.

Author Stance - making decisions about [X] based on metagame considerations, but in such a way that they are justified by in-game considerations.

Director Stance - making decisions about the inactive things, window dressing, and environment around [X], based on metagame (or possibly in-game) considerations, with or without in-game justification.

Where [X] is whatever active element of the game world you're making decisions about. [X] is usually your character, but it might also be somebody else's character, the thieves' guild, your character's horsie, God, or any other active agent in the game.

Heck, I'd be a fool to turn that down.

-lumpley Vincent

I've cut Pawn Stance from my list for no especially good reason.

[ This Message was edited by: lumpley on 2001-10-23 15:19 ]

Well, I'd guess that [X] is a character in Ron's model.

Your model also makes the definition of Stance weird. Something like "the changes the player makes to the game world relative to some active object". Is that really a useful definition? I'm again agreeing with Ralph. Why not talk about "Changes players make to any object"? This satisfies the Active and In-Game components of Ron's definitions.

The problem with the whole "relative" thing is how do you know when it's about a character at all? If I create a bar using director type power, just for the heck of it, is that automatically in relation to my character just because I have one? Even if my character is not in the scene but someone elses is? Even if no character is in the scene but some exist in the same world? We all have characters after a fashion, even GMs. When the GM makes up a town, doesn't that have some relation to the NPCs that presumably inhabit the town?

My point is that I see no point in talking about making changes to non-character objects "in relation to a character". Certainly you can restrict Directorial power (or GM power if you prefer, whatever) to a player in that he can only use it with regard to things that happen in scenes in which the character is in, or to effects of the character's effort. But to say that this is a Stance, and making changes that somehow aren't in some sort of direct relation to a charcter are not, seems very odd. Where do you draw this line?

Mike

Mike,

In the other thread, Ron was talking about an active agent being usually but not always a character. I assumed he still was.

Here's where I draw the lines, off the top of my head.

My character is Acanthus. My character's horsie is Rumex.

I could say, "As Acanthus is riding into battle, Rumex stumbles and Acanthus hauls on the reigns, swearing." The italicized bit is Director Stance Re: Acanthus, with Rumex being the inactive thing I'm controlling.

I could say, "Rumex follows the smell of the other horses, but as he's going a branch tangles his trailing reigns and he has to smash it with his hoof." The italicized bit is Director Stance Re: Rumex, with the branch being the inactive thing.

In neither case is Rumex really a character, but in the latter he's the active agent and focus of my director stance.

I could also say, "there've been certain changes in the town government, and as a result the thieves' guild is clamming up." Here the thieves' guild is an active agent as well -- yes, you can extrapolate its behavior to its individual members, but I think it makes very good sense to talk about it as an agent itself too.

-lumpley Vincent

Suspicious.

If I just say, "Rumux stumbles" is that Director stance because my character happens to be there, or is it Author stance for Rumex the active agent? And if you differentiate these somehow, what's the point?

Mike

Mike,

I would hazzard to guess that "Rumux stumbles" is author stance while "an anvil falls of Rumux" is director stance.

The point of the difference is it does shows what areas the player is able to effect. If the players can only effect the in-game agents (i.e. the characters) this is author stance if they can effect things other than the in-game agents it is director stance.

You seem to be stuck on the PC thing I was earlier in this thread. According to Ron, who's character it is (PC, NPC, whatever) is irrelavant when we look at stances. IIUC

On 2001-10-24 16:11, Mike Holmes wrote:
Suspicious.

If I just say, "Rumux stumbles" is that Director stance because my character happens to be there, or is it Author stance for Rumex the active agent? And if you differentiate these somehow, what's the point?

Mike

Mike,

If you just say, "Rumux stumbles," then that's not giving enough information for anyone to judge Stance.

Is it a retroactive explanation for why Rumux didn't get somewhere in time?

Or is it a condition of the terrain that is merely context for whatever else is happening?

Is Acanthus riding on Rumux' back (or strapped there, or otherwise affected by Rumux performance?)

Or is Rumux the hero of the moment, with everyone far more interested in his fate than in that of Acanthus?

I think that with the necessary information in hand, the three Stances fall out very distinctly. I think that CERTAIN GAME DESIGNS will blur the lines between Stance (Little Fears blurs Actor/Author) - and perhaps? Is it OK if I say this? because Universalis blurs the line between Director and Author Stance, perhaps Ralph and Mike are thinking more on its terms?

Best,
Ron

On 2001-10-24 20:45, pblock wrote:
Mike,

I would hazzard to guess that "Rumux stumbles" is author stance while "an anvil falls of Rumux" is director stance.

The point of the difference is it does shows what areas the player is able to effect. If the players can only effect the in-game agents (i.e. the characters) this is author stance if they can effect things other than the in-game agents it is director stance.

You seem to be stuck on the PC thing I was earlier in this thread. According to Ron, who's character it is (PC, NPC, whatever) is irrelavant when we look at stances. IIUC

Hey,

If the following is the source of the problem, then I can solve it quickly.

"Now it is Director stance to have the crate fall and author stance to have the target be hit by the falling crate it seems to me."

They are both Director stance. Author stance by definition is expressed in the actions of the character.

The problem with the Rumux example is that the word "stumbles" leaves the active agent ambiguous (horse or terrain). It would probably not be ambiguous in actual play.

Therefore we can nix the interpretation quoted above right now.

With any luck, that puts us all back in bed together again.

Best,
Ron

They are both Director stance. Author stance by definition is expressed in the actions of the character.

Hi Mike,

The tricky issue is the distinction between A character and THE character. If you think about it, it really is a big distinction in role-playing and not just semantics. Granted, THE character doesn't have to be yours. But in any role-playing circumstance, there are a set of characters with "THE" plastered on their heads and everyone else who has "A" plastered on their heads. (And some of the THE's may be NPCs, although it's often problematic when disagreements arise about this.)

This is exactly one of those crucial unspoken issues of role-playing, just like my Initiation Etc point, which people "learn" by exposure and participation, often in dysfunctional ways, rather than actively discuss and understand.

Anyway, as I tried to state at one point, Rumux the horse is not a character unless he has a THE on his head. Until then, he's just furniture that can run, and anything he does is Director Stance.

And I furthermore repeat that "Rumux stumbles," as an isolated statement, CANN0T be classified as to Stance without further context. So don't sweat that one - you're lost because the statement is lost, not the terminology or ideas.

Best,
Ron

One other thing: "target" is a VERY problematic term for what we're discussing. It is easily misread as "the AFFECTED entity in the game-world" rather than "the MOVING/ACTING/DOING entity in the game-world."

I don't know if "entity" is any good, but it doesn't carry the misleading ambiguity of "target."

Best,
Ron

[ This Message was edited by: Ron Edwards on 2001-10-26 14:53 ]

On 2001-10-26 14:45, Ron Edwards wrote:
And I furthermore repeat that "Rumux stumbles," as an isolated statement, CANN0T be classified as to Stance without further context. So don't sweat that one - you're lost because the statement is lost, not the terminology or ideas.

On 2001-10-26 14:45, Ron Edwards wrote:
One other thing: "target" is a VERY problematic term for what we're discussing. It is easily misread as "the AFFECTED entity in the game-world" rather than "the MOVING/ACTING/DOING entity in the game-world."

I don't know if "entity" is any good, but it doesn't carry the misleading ambiguity of "target."

Hi Mike,

Well, maybe part of the problem is that everyone's posting so fast and furiously that the distinctions between definitions, suggestions, objections, and developments are too blurry.

On a personal note, I have a lot to deal with both here on the Forge and elsewhere (in case you haven't noticed, Gamism is getting a good kicking again). Why don't we call a bit of a halt, people who want can go over both the essay and the various threads that have sprung up about it, and points can be underlined or crossed off as seem appropriate.

I think I'd certainly benefit from it. Remember, the essay brought some stuff INTO focus for me by writing it, as well as revealed long-standing connections that were solid. I could use a bit of reflection about the overall points and issues raised rather than continuously riding the wave-front of whatever got said last. I know that I won't be rejoining the discussion until tomorrow at the earliest.

Sometimes, that mid-afternoon cookies + juice + nap from kindergarten seems like it's still a good idea.

Best,
Ron

Damn it anyway,

One more post and then I really will go away for a day or two.

Hey Mike,

The guy who got hit with the crate is Ugly Pig Bob. Also, in that example, Director Stance was exercised ON THE CRATE, NOT ON UGLY PIG BOB, in order (1) to put it over UPB in the first place and (2) to drop it on him.

See, that's part of the problem too. People know that if my character Pete kicks Ugly Pig Bob in the balls, that's Author or Actor Stance regarding MY CHARACTER.

Now just put me, the player, next to the other player named Julia, with her character Sally. This time, I tell Julia, "Have Sally kick him in the balls!" and she does - in this case, it's STILL Author or Actor Stance, on my and Julia's parts, regarding SALLY.

Same goes for Director Stance, if instead of a character of importance to me or anyone else kicking UPB in the balls, someone exercises the right to drop a duck on him from above (or have his bandolier suddenly spontaneously combust, or whatever). The Stance is operating on the duck or the bandolier.

One more point: the duck or bandolier could easily be replaced by Servant Smith, who has stood idly by through the other examples. Servant Smith is merely one of a dozen relatively uninteresting servants, and - I shall say - not one player nor the GM cares if he lives, dies, or becomes undead. So therefore, if I or Julia state, using whatever game mechanic is available including Drama, that Servant Smith kicks Ugly Pig Bob in the balls, THAT IS DIRECTOR STANCE.

Best,
Ron

One more point: the duck or bandolier could easily be replaced by Servant Smith, who has stood idly by through the other examples. Servant Smith is merely one of a dozen relatively uninteresting servants, and - I shall say - not one player nor the GM cares if he lives, dies, or becomes undead.

An idea for determining target: whatever the camera would be showing in a movie.

Where the crate falls on UPB, the camera would cut to the crate to show it teetering, to show the fall. Therefore, as the object "in focus" at that moment, it is the active element.

Random and everyone,

You've stated it pretty much as I see it. When we were only talking about players and their specifically-designated characters, no one had much trouble with the idea that Actor & Author Stances were about the actions of those characters, whereas Director Stance was about "actions" (events) of anyone and anything else. Director Stance also applies to things like "That's when I show up," because such statements really twist time and space "around" the character.

(Author and Director Stance, on the other hand, are alike in that they do not rely on CHARACTER knowledge or goals, as viewed from "inside" the character.)

OK, so nothing I'm saying now is changing that. It only acknowledges that people can and do play one another's characters (and with non-character stuff), covertly and overtly, with and without permission, all the time. It also acknowledges that players and GMs alike often designate certain NPCs as "important" and treat them as such, just as they would treat their own characters.

Best,
Ron

Hmm. If I have a crate fall on Sally's character (say we're playing SOAP and we know her secret) is that Director or Author? I'm killing her character, and that character is (I think) by your definition a Major or Active or otherwise important character. It seems odd to say that this is just Director stance just because I used a crate as my vehicle of death. What if I have Sally's character cut her own throat? Then it's Author? Or is it Director because she used a knife?

Even better, what if I have Sally's character slip and fall out of the window (happened in the game we played, remember?), is that Director because presumably there was something slippery that was slipped upon? Or because I employed gravity as an unspoken agent? As the rule is written in SOAP, I have power to affect anything except to kill a character until their secret is out. So in this case I'm employing a power that is given to me to specifically affect the character. From a power vantage, that certainly seems like something more related to the character than to anything else.

I can see where your division comes in, I think. But when would this odd construct become useful?

Mike

[ This Message was edited by: Mike Holmes on 2001-10-29 10:05 ]

Aaarrghh ... (delete expletives and the term "Simulationist" used in a manner not approved at the Forge) (that was a JOKE between Mike and me, so chill out)

When the crate falls, it's Director Stance - the EFFECT of the crate falling could be anything, from Sally's death to Sally's orgasm to Sally's indifference. When Sally cuts her throat, it's probably Author Stance (observing that in Soap play, Actor Stance is rarely used).

As for "slipping and falling," that is just the same as the Rumux example, because the RESOLUTION is getting mixed into the announcement in ways that are specific to Soap and other games with Drama mechanics. To see what Stance is involved, I would have to ask you to explain just what actions are happening - either the floor is slippery and "trips" Sally (Director Stance) or she is a stumblebum and, for all intents and purposes, hurls herself out the window by tangling up her feet (Author Stance).

If this seems excessively narrow, then please note that in any entertainment medium (soap opera is the obvious example, but I maintain ANY medium), it is just these sorts of causal details that have to be established for people to enjoy the story/events.

Best,
Ron

I can see where your division comes in, I think. But when would this odd construct become useful?

Ralph,

My problem with your point is that, although it is neat and unambiguous, we have just chucked out a huge amount of actual in-play activity. People do play one another's characters with "my character" status in terms of importance. People do twist time/space/events "around" characters, their own and others.

Carefully delineating what a player may do regarding his or her own character vs. everyone and everything else would be a fine solution. Unfortunately, I think that it is grossly artificial relative to actual role-playing.

Again and again lately, I think a lot of people are tagging certain terms or concepts "arbitrary" or "irrelevant" because those things are not especially useful in THEIR mode and experience of play. It's time for people to remember that we are talking about role-playing as it exists across our hobby-culture, not as it is done within their own experience and preferences.

Best,
Ron

OK. I understand your definition, weird though I think that it may be. I agree with Ralph on the usefulness topic, given the abstruse place that the definition finds itself. But I doubt that you, Ron, will agree. So, unless you've had a sudden change of mind, we are at the impasse.

I appologize for to all and sundry for any distraction that I may have made from more practical topics.

Mike

My problem with your point is that, although it is neat and unambiguous, we have just chucked out a huge amount of actual in-play activity. People do play one another's characters with "my character" status in terms of importance. People do twist time/space/events "around" characters, their own and others.

either the floor is slippery and "trips" Sally (Director Stance) or she is a stumblebum and, for all intents and purposes, hurls herself out the window by tangling up her feet (Author Stance).

Ralph,

Your last two paragraphs are what I've been talking about all along - moving over to some other character and playing him or her "as if" that character was yours.

If Author/Actor/Director only applies to MY character, then when I do the above, there's no name for it. Or you could call it Director Stance, according to you, REGARDLESS of what decision-making process is going into the event. This makes no sense - Stance is ABOUT decision-making.

For example, say that Sally is someone else's character - as she was, actually, in Soap, but let's take it further and have her be someone else's character in a more traditional game. The player is playing Sally in a firefight, and I, fellow player, horn in and suggest a tactic - even, perhaps, holler out a tactic as if it were an announcement.

This is Director Stance? I can't see it. It's Author or Actor Stance, big-time. So it's Sally, and not my character Steve? So what?

It may be that this whole business of Someone Else's Character is not within many people's sphere of play. Maybe they are used to very strict delineations about who gets to say what about whom, with reinforced social means of keeping that clear.

If that's so, then OK - stick with "my character" and be done, because anyone you CAN influence with your announcements will be an unimportant NPC and hence Director Stance anyway. The Stance triad works fine for this context, and it seems to be easy to swallow. But please realize that quite a bit of role-playing permits - usually tacitly - a lot of bleed between who announces, or suggests announcements, for player-characters and for NPCs with nearly-PC-level importance. Under those circumstances, my notion of cross-character Actor or Author Stance is both coherent and necessary.

Best,
Ron

Hey All.

If I may, it seems to me that here's a point where people are breaking:

1. Director Stance.

2. Temporarily making an otherwise trivial feature of the environment an 'active agent' and giving it actions from Actor or Author Stance.

1. and 2. are probably the same thing. (I'm guessing that Mike would say that they are. I think that they are.)

Anyway, if they are, then we have a choice:

a. Actor to [X], Author to [X], and Director to [X], where [X] only includes non-trivial things whose decisions matter, not trivial features temporarily made active.

Or b. Actor to [X] and Author to [X], where [X] includes both non-trivial things whose decisions matter and trivial features of the environment temporarily made active.

Which we choose seems like a matter of taste to me. People who like to distinguish Trivial Features of the Environment from Things Whose Decisions Matter will prefer the former. People who don't will prefer the latter. I'd just as soon acknowledge that they mean about the same thing and move on.

-lumpley Vincent

They don't mean the same thing. In practice, Author stance is a small power used to develop the character. Director stance is potentially an enormous power which can reshape an entire game. I would say that Author stance could be a subset of Director stance, but the reverse is not true. I would also say that few players have ever had the opportunity to push Director stance to its limits. Indeed, whenever I've suggested those limits, people tend to back away. Finally, I would say that people who don't quite "get it" should play around with Crayne's game, Soap, because it's an Author/Director workshop presented as a game.

Hey Logan.

You're missing the scope of [X], or something. I'm not saying that taking Director Stance toward my character Acanthus equals taking Author Stance toward him, I'm saying that taking Director Stance toward Acanthus might equal taking Author Stance toward his horsie, Rumex. Or whatever else.

Limiting the stances strictly to the player-PC relationship means that we have to invent a whole new thing for GMs to be doing. If instead we expand the stances, we can talk about GMs without (as much) grief. I'm coming from a co-GM background, and my observation is that most of the time when I'm acting in a GM-like way, it's basically the same as when I'm acting in a player-like way, except toward different things.

I'm up to my elbows right now in a game design that will (gods willing) illustrate my point.

-lumpley Vincent

[ This Message was edited by: lumpley on 2001-11-03 10:53 ]

I'm not really sure there's any use of my posting right now... but just in case I get a reply...


I've been rather unsure about what the stances meant until now (or at least what they mean to Ron, who I assume introduced them into the Forge's terminology).

So here's another "what I understand the stances to be" post.

Ity seems to me that in order to stick a stance on anything you first have to state what/who the game is about. I'm not talking about what the author of a source book says, what the Premise might be, or the setting or anything. Rather, is the game about a certain hero and not his horse? or is about the hero AND the horse too? This is really just saying which elements are protagonists I think.

Thus, one one separate Protagonists from Circumstance (please someone think of better names for this), and define the Story as of what Circumstances do to Protagonists and what they do to modify their Circumstance.

Having said that, Director Stance would be from where a player defines the Circumstance of a Protagonist.

Author Stance would be from where a player defines a Protagonist.

Actor Stance would be from where a player defines what a Protagonist does to modify his Circumstance.

Does anyone share this point of view (perhaps phrased differently of course)?

Does it add to making the point clearer, or is just ANOTHER intent on explaining stance that just makes the thread longer? :smile:

Hey Don Lag,

You're saying that Author Stance is making decisions about your character, Actor Stance is making decisions about your character's actions, and Director Stance is making decisions about your character's surroundings, right?

I'm sold. Given all the [X] stuff above, of course, that it's not just the PCs it's also NPCs and horsies and whatever else I was on about.

The distinction you're making between Actor and Author seems more practical to me than worrying about whether I was thinking about what would my guy do? or what would be funny? or what would move the game out of this doldrum? or where is the GM going with this? or any of the other things that are in my head practically all the time I play.

For what it's worth.

-lumpley Vincent

Lumpley:

You're saying that Author Stance is making decisions about your character, Actor Stance is making decisions about your character's actions, and Director Stance is making decisions about your character's surroundings, right?

Folks,

A lot of people are experiencing a terrible confusion about Stances, because they are confounding the EFFECTS of something on a character (the character is a target) and the ACTIONS of a character.

Stances are about characters' actions AND the way that the universe acts in relation to them, but NOT about the effects of these things.

"The guano crate falls on Ugly Pig Bob." This is Director Stance regarding the crate. No Stance discussion of Ugly Pig Bob is meaningful or relevant.

"The arrow has struck Borax the Very Clean Warrior!" This statement is irrelevant to Stance entirely.

NOT ALL ROLE-PLAYING STATEMENTS ARE MADE FROM A STANCE. Are people missing this point? Certainly, MOST role-playing statements are Stance-oriented, but statements of effect are NOT.

Best,
Ron

I'm a little confused with this last post of yours... especially with

"The arrow has struck Borax the Very Clean Warrior!" This statement is irrelevant to Stance entirely.

Therefore any relevant statement in a roleplaying situation (other than "pass me the chips"), either defines the Protagonists or the Circumstance. I can't imagine a statement in a game that doesn't add to the definition of the Protagonists or the Circumstance.

Does anyone agreee on this? or am I wrong from the very begining?