The discussion at the end of this thread caught my eye, but Ron closed it afore I could post:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8494

There was some talk about Boewulf and Huck Finn not exhibiting thematic conflicts. I have several things to say about this.

First of all, both works cited are very large literary works. Egri's thematic material deals with drama (i.e., plays) and short stories, which are by nature extremely focused. I claim that a major work - say a novel like Huck Finn - deals with many thematic concepts. It may be true that Huck never doubts his course of action, but he *is* presented with many choices along the way. The choices serve to illustrate his character, exactly because he makes them without hesitation or doubt.

Furthermore, Huck is the narrator; even if the story was truely non-conflicted from his point of view, there are plenty of other conflicts explored through the other characters.

Moving on from there, I'm pondering the definition of Narrativism. Currently, it requires that the PCs face and make ethical / moral decisions, yes? I wonder about the Tale of Turin (Tolkien), which is, to me, a great example of fated drama. Turin's doom was pretty much set in stone from the very start. IIRC, it was even prophecied. One of the main themes of the story is Turin's *lack* of choice. He tries to be honorable, noble, do the right thing, etc., but there's no hope. The narrative certainly deals with with moral and ethical issues (boy, does it ever!) yet the the protagonist walks a set path.

This reminds me of this thread: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4738

Vincent's whole point was to set up a situation where a thematic narrative was produced by purely causal play (i.e., simulationism).

I would suggest that Narrativism be expanded to include the addressing of theme on a meta-level, by the players via narrative device and the like, rather than limiting it exclusively to PC action.

Hello,

Those are good points, Nathan, but I think that the current definition already covers them. People are falling into the trap of thinking that, in discussing Narrativism, the characters know they are facing a choice, and that they choose in full consideration of the options. This is not at all the case.

Since characters are fictional, they may or may not make choices in this way. In many, many, many cases, they do not - the way they take the path they take (straight-ahead response, no "considering") lets us know what sort of person they are.

However! That doesn't mean the real issue does not consitute a "choice." In fact, review the meaning of Premise: it's a conundrum or issue that's important to the players, as such. Whether it's recognized or important to the characters as a choice/conundrum is totally, totally irrelevant to the definition.

In fact, going back to Egri, he usually recommends defining a character as so thoroughly embarked on his or her path relative to Premise, that there's no turning back. I see this as an artifact of the theater medium, as plays usually begin well after the point of no return for the conflict in question. When novels or other longer-term fictional contexts are considered, the Premise has a lot of time to evolve into place. But Egri's point is worth noting, because it emphasizes the point that the characters really do not have to "realize" the Premise is happening - in fact, most of the best characters realize nothing of the sort.

Now, my last and larger point: people are being way too casual with referencing literature and other media, when discussing Premise. Remember that in role-playing, the creation and the presentation of the art form are simultaneous. That is not the case for a novel, play, epic poem, movie, or similar. In those media, the author or authors create(s) first, and the audience experiences it later.

This is a big deal. Its consequence is that, when appreciating and enjoying the presentation of those other media, the protagonists' actions are indeed fixed. They are flies in amber. The story is already made and is now being told. Our audience-appreciation of that story is only Premise insofar as we haven't finished the story yet; once we do, it's Theme.

But in Narrativist role-playing, Premise is a real live thing throughout most of the role-playing experience. Its existence is negotiated into Theme; the people at the table are taking the experience of the author and turning it, itself, into a creative social medium. Theme doesn't happen until the moments of major conflict resolution arrive, or as hints of what that conflict resolution might become.

So pointing to any non-role-playing medium and talking about how characters "choices" are fixed, is perilously close to missing the mark entirely, at a pretty fundamental level of understanding.

Best,
Ron

Paganini wrote: There was some talk about Boewulf and Huck Finn not exhibiting thematic conflicts. I have several things to say about this.

First of all, both works cited are very large literary works. Egri's thematic material deals with drama (i.e., plays) and short stories, which are by nature extremely focused. I claim that a major work - say a novel like Huck Finn - deals with many thematic concepts. It may be true that Huck never doubts his course of action, but he *is* presented with many choices along the way. The choices serve to illustrate his character, exactly because he makes them without hesitation or doubt.

Ron Edwards wrote: Those are good points, Nathan, but I think that the current definition already covers them. People are falling into the trap of thinking that, in discussing Narrativism, the characters know they are facing a choice, and that they choose in full consideration of the options. This is not at all the case.

Since characters are fictional, they may or may not make choices in this way. In many, many, many cases, they do not - the way they take the path they take (straight-ahead response, no "considering") lets us know what sort of person they are.
...
Egri's point is worth noting, because it emphasizes the point that the characters really do not have to "realize" the Premise is happening - in fact, most of the best characters realize nothing of the sort.

Ron Edwards wrote: But in Narrativist role-playing, Premise is a real live thing throughout most of the role-playing experience. Its existence is negotiated into Theme; the people at the table are taking the experience of the author and turning it, itself, into a creative social medium. Theme doesn't happen until the moments of major conflict resolution arrive, or as hints of what that conflict resolution might become.

So pointing to any non-role-playing medium and talking about how characters "choices" are fixed, is perilously close to missing the mark entirely, at a pretty fundamental level of understanding.

Ron, basically, yeah. I've got this headcold thing, maybe the meds are making me vague, but the first half of your post was pretty much exactly the point I was trying to make. :)

John Kim wrote: That is, in a fatalist RPG, the major conflict resolution is pre-determined. The participants agree in advance what the answer to the Premise is going to be. By the time character creation is complete and the campaign is started, we know what dramatically will happen to the main character(s).

Where I go with this is the following:

Narratist play is, at least in significant part (as I understand it), described by what the people at the table are making a priority (reinforcing, grooving on, etc.). If, due to the fatalism of my character design, if that threshold is never truly tested, then I believe my play will be more focused on situation than theme (I brought this up in a prior thread previously).

It would seem that: if my character design places the threshold of decision (the point at which I as a player will make an interesting decision related to Premise) above the level the game reaches, then an observer will see that, while I am reacting to situation, I, as a player, am not engaged in the moral question of decision making.

It seems to me that would be simulationist play. By definition. By definition of prioritization.

-Marco

M. J. Young wrote:

John Kim wrote: That is, in a fatalist RPG, the major conflict resolution is pre-determined. The participants agree in advance what the answer to the Premise is going to be. By the time character creation is complete and the campaign is started, we know what dramatically will happen to the main character(s).

John's got some wonderful stuff in his post, but I'm afraid I have to take issue with this point. I do not see knowing the outcome of the events of the story and knowing the answer to the premise as being precisely equivalent.

M. J. Young wrote: Now, maybe I misunderstood what you intended in this, but I think you could have an entirely fatalist setup and still address premise by playing it out in ways that color how the outcome is perceived. Does the character know his fate, or stumble into it? If he knows it, does he embrace it or fight it? How does it ultimately come to pass?

M. J. Young wrote: Fiction may illustrate this in that characters in fiction can do all those things, and in so doing their choices address the premise and create theme; roleplaying characters similarly address the premise by how they fulfill their destinies, even when those destinies are fixed.

Hi,

I've been following the pulse of this matter for several threads now, and, with apologies to Ron and his accurate point that we're talking different things with RPGs and movies/novels/plays, I must ask, "What the heck is going on?"

How did these discussions reach the point where John can write, "who [a character] is defines what [the character] will do," as a counterpoint to the idea that "most" characters make "choices."

Folks, going back to Poetics, who a character is defines what the character does. That's the definition of character. Whether the character is consistant in his choices, or changes, *that's* the character.

If a character is resolute -- that is, continuously behaves as he did at the start of the story, that's, for lack of a better word in fixed stories, his choice. Huck, for example, helps a SLAVE ESCAPE! for crying out loud. Through slaves states. That's a choice. Now, he's not conflicted about this. No. He's in no agony. Who he is determines he behave this way, and the threats and offers along the way simply prove this is the choice he's making.

People seems to be conflating "choice" with "tormented" or something. Not the same thing at all. All characters are constantly being tossed choices. Some simply are steadfast. Someone might call such a character less "dramatic." It's not a call I'm prepared to make.

In the last section of Beowulf, Beowulf stands against the dragon. All of his fellow warriors flee but one. (It's a fucking amazing scene that still gets to me just thinking about.) Yes, its compelling, really compelling that that last warrior stays with his lord. But, please, remember, Beowulf stays too. I know why the warrior stays -- his fear is overcome by his loyalty. But that fact that Beowulf stays without needing to dither is also compelling. Why does he stay? It's not for any obvious reason. Tease that out from the entire tale and you'll find theme and premise.

And it's not rare at all. These are all examples from really popular movies: Richard Kimball in "The Fugitive"; Hanibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs; Eliot Ness in "The Untouchables"; Maxiumus in "Gladiator." I don't know about you, but I was *with* these guys, in one way or another, and they are fixed. But their fixed behavior always revealed by the other behavior not taken.

Sam in the Lord of the Rings. Richard the III. Caliban in The Tempest. All four of the major characters in Seinfeld. (Except the episode where George decided to do the exact opposite of his normal choices.)

The "fixed" character isn't "fated" -- for better or worse, he keeps making "that" choice. And he isn't dull or flat -- or doesn't have to be.

All this matters for RPGs, because the logic seems to be here that for narrativist play, the players have to toss their PCs on a sea of angst, flipping around and whirling like WoD Vampires in cycles of Humanity loss and gain.

No. A player can have his PC make the same damn choice the entire fucking tale, and it's still a choice. It's still compelling, in part because after a while you realize, "this guy is just not going to stop," and whether it's Beowulf or Jerry on Sienfeld, you have to keep looking because you need to know exactly what the train wreck is going to look like. (Or, in the case of Huck and Sam, to discover, to your surprise, that steadfast loyalty and faith somehow, sometimes, can pay off.)

If I may, I think this all started when Fusangite asked about characters (or their players, it got slippery) who learn something that informs them of the fact they have a role to play in a story, they know what they story is, so they just have to play the role.

This set up, intriguing though it is, has *nothing* whatsoever to do with the character of Beowulf or Huck Finn. Clearly.

Second, if the player/character can't choose to disobey the stricture of their role, then they are no longer characters in the usual sense of the word. They are filling a role, everyone knows they're filling the role, and now we're in "ritual" not story. And that's a whole 'nother ball game.

What makes this situation different from a heroquest in Hero Quest is that in HQ the characters can still make choices. Here, apparently, you're just filling out the actions that everyone knows is supposed to happen. Again, ritual. And in terms of Fusangite's set up, at this point it seems like the end game to a puzzle: There's a mystery of the world, the players gather clues, determine the "truth" of the ritual tale the PC are supposed to play out, and then do it. But, again, at this point you're role playing the "telling" of a tale, not the tale itself. It may not be narrativism, but it's also not joined to any of the tales that have been so far referenced (Beowulf, Huck Finn, the Iliad). It's a pageant at this point, done on the High Holidays, but without actual choice to fill the role or not, it's not a "story."

Take care,
Christopher

Christopher Kubasik wrote: Second, if the player/character can't choose to disobey the stricture of their role, then they are no longer characters in the usual sense of the word. They are filling a role, everyone knows they're filling the role, and now we're in "ritual" not story. And that's a whole 'nother ball game.

What makes this situation different from a heroquest in Hero Quest is that in HQ the characters can still make choices. Here, apparently, you're just filling out the actions that everyone knows is supposed to happen. Again, ritual. And in terms of Fusangite's set up, at this point it seems like the end game to a puzzle: There's a mystery of the world, the players gather clues, determine the "truth" of the ritual tale the PC are supposed to play out, and then do it. But, again, at this point you're role playing the "telling" of a tale, not the tale itself. It may not be narrativism, but it's also not joined to any of the tales that have been so far referenced (Beowulf, Huck Finn, the Iliad). It's a pageant at this point, done on the High Holidays, but without actual choice to fill the role or not, it's not a "story."

Theatre pretty clearly is ritual and historically in derived from more explicit and generally recognised rituals. However, the act of writing a play isn't ritual - it's preparation for a ritual.

Given that in RPGs the 'writing' and 'performance' are simultaneous it - like improv - doesn't have this ritual component. Therefore RPGs are distinct from theatre in that they lack the element of ritual.

But none of this has anything to do however with whether it's a story or not.

Knackers to Anglo Saxon epics and greek tragedy: the ultimate examples for role players as to whether predestination answers premise are in time travel episodes of Star Trek.

Most importantly, Deja Q (someone will correct me about the episode title I'm sure). Previously, it's been established that Picard was stabbed right through the chest in a bar brawl in his youth. We also know that he laughed when he saw the point emerge from his sternum.

At the time the tale is told, it serves as an example to Wesley that his mentor was once young and far more foolish than he: the laugh is presumed to be an expression of clinical shock, hysteria and bravado.

In Deja Q, Picard is given the opportunity to go back in time, change events, not pick a fight, and thus prevent his death from complications from the wound 20 odd years later. Which he does, and finds that it set the tone for his own later life as a, lets face it, tech support nerd, not bold captain.

So, he goes back again, picks the fight, laughs when he sees the point emerge from his sternum (and, thanks to Patrick Stewart, it's pretty obvious, the laugh is one of joyous triumph that he has set the world right again, even at the cost of his early death 20 years later). Of course, it turns out he doesn't die 20 years later (this is syndicated TV, folks, not Lysistrata), and we get a "was it just an NDE" coda.

Now, to me, that's all premise addressing goodness. Picard has to address the premise "Is a bold short life prefereable to a long timid one?", and knowing Picard you know what he will choose, but that's the point.

Predestination plots are / can be pure premise in a can. They tell you the what, which is the dullest part of nar play. It leaves the how and the why wide open inside a defined frame of action, allowing judgement of the adressing of the premise up to the "audience."

Gee,

And here I was only going to post to say "I agree" to Marco. If I understand correctly, you're corroborating my samurai examples in the Simulationism essay.

I'll do that and quick get outta here before the "knife protrudes from chest" becomes more than mere example.

Best,
Ron

Hi John,

A clarification:

I'm not saying that when actors perform lines in a play (or a movie) it's not a story. The audience percieving the story sees it has happening now, and thus, there's a story.

My point in reference to Fusangite's meta-whatever stuff, where the *players* realize their characters have certain actions to play out (if I understood it correctly), and the audience (the players) set out to recreate the narrative they've become a part of correctly.

Since all we're doing is judging the accuracy of a good "performance," it is a story, but not one that' Narrativist for GNS purposes, because there's no choice. It's a shadow play of a story.

Please keep in mind the first half of my post... The point is to dismantle this whole idea of "Fatalsitic" characters. Beowulf (in "Beowulf") doesn't know he's Beowulf "playing" Beowulf, which seemed to be what Fusangite's characters end up doing.

What you think I said, is not what I said. Grant me that since I was reference movies and oral tales a stories, I certianly think they are stories.

Now, plays and movies (and oral storytelling) while containing ritualized components, are not ritual. They are art forms with their own concerns. Dramatic narrative, for example, depends on creating the tension that the scene might go either way -- even though it might be recorded for posterity.

In short, there is a conern for creating the illusiong that "this really happened," or "this is happening." Even in Beowulf, with all the little details of life, the reactions of the characters. My point is that a ritual doesn't concern itself with such matters: it holds the story up and says, "here are the details that matter; we're putting the characters through the paces, and once we're done, you'll know them."

Using Fusangite's style (and again, that's what I am talking about here), I'm not sure how anyone could come to the point of wondering how its going to turn out, since apparently, after solving the puzzle of what story we're in, we just play out the story appropriately. It seems like hardcore style of sim to me, not Narrativism, which, in my mind, settles the whole thing pretty quickly.

Now, as for the broader issue of a character who doesn't change... I'm still not sure how such characters are flat. I'm still not sure how their not involved with an Ergi like premise. I listed four major characters from major films (I'll toss in Sonny from "The Godfather," just cause he's on my mind right now), and say, again, that in the context of their stories, all of these characters are enaged with the premise of the story. All of them compelling. All of them serving to illustrate the tension of the premise in contrast with the other characters in the work.

This all began, please remember, with the concern of characters not making choices, not changing. Such charcters were variously called Fated or Fixed, and thus not part of Nar play, because they weren't making choices. My point simply is, they are. They're simply making the same choice again and again.... Which from ancient times to the present, is a perfectly viable and well-used option for characters.

As for your final question, of course something is a "story" in an RPG if some of the details are improvised but the theme is kept -- and its the little word "some" for the details changing that allows the possibility of it being Narrativist.

As for "Fatalist RPG" -- I actually haven't seen a definition of this yet... I didn't know there was one yet.

As far as I can tell it means either a) a PC jumping through the hoops of a character we already know; or b) the ending of the story is already known... The first I would again, call a shadow play of a story... The second is well known within hundreds of tales.. and it doesn't change the issue of choice one iota -- since we're then watching the tale to find out what choices the character made to reach that ending we already know. ("Memento" leaps to mind, but there's also "Titanic", Pinter's "Betrayal" and the whole Conan cycle.)

Thus my main point: all of this (short of the hoop jumping of playing out the tale of a character and being judged by how well you do it), is common, frequent and quite normal. I'm not seeing anything new here really.

Take care,
Christopher

Ron Edwards wrote: Gee,

And here I was only going to post to say "I agree" to Marco. If I understand correctly, you're corroborating my samurai examples in the Simulationism essay.

I'll do that and quick get outta here before the "knife protrudes from chest" becomes more than mere example.

Best,
Ron

Hi Marco,

Ummm ... no, now we're disagreeing. My take on so-called "fatalistic characters" is identical to Christopher's. In your previous post, when you wrote about:

if my character design places the threshold of decision (the point at which I as a player will make an interesting decision related to Premise) above the level the game reaches, then an observer will see that, while I am reacting to situation, I, as a player, am not engaged in the moral question of decision making.

Hi Ron,

Sure, I know that's an issue which is why I stipulated lots of actual play to define the character. And I never said I had no intention of changing it. Judge Dredd doesn't (didn't) have stats anywhere--but if you read, say, four or five of the comics, you have a really strong sense of where his character stands and it would be highly inconsistent to have him act outside of it (humanitarian pardon).

Since you've said that consistency of the world/character is important (or even crucial?) to all modes of play, I'm invoking it here.

A character who has been shown to act as a samurai will be highly inconsistent if he goes back on his word for something that's not uber-important, yes? And if the guy has already established that his word is more important than the life of his "true love" and then he just goes breaking it for what (to the observers--and maybe even to the player) appear to be trivial reasons, then the consistency of play will be hurt--wouldn't you say? (If not, okay--but I'd think consistency is in the hands of the players through their characters as well as the GM through the world).

So that means that if the player is given a choice of "saving the noble bandit" or upholding his word to the daymio ... and the bandit doesn't turn out to be noble enough to engage the player's threhold for changing the established character, then you get narrativism ... or inconsistency (he let his true-love die last year, but this year he lets Joe the Bandito go? What the hell?).

Now, you might say that this opportunity is a chance for the Samuari to change his ways and realize his word isn't that important--and I'd agree if the case was very dramatic--but that's where the thresholds come in. The bar would have to be pretty high for the player to want to change his character (and assume he finds the at-least-so-far word-bound samuari interesting and fun to play). If the situation doesn't push that limit then I can't see how you get narrativism: Game rules or no.

And if by social contract you mean "an emphasis on continunity" then I guess we do agree. I'd prefer to play in a game where the world behaves at least moderately consistently and the characters (players and NPC's) behave as consistently as people do in real life. But that's IMO, a weak appeal to social contract.

-Marco

Hi Marco,

Sorry, man - you just went swinging off through the branches, as far as I can tell. I can't understand a word of what you're talking about. Not one of your "therefores" or "wouldn't you say's" make any sense to me.

With respect, a lot of your input tends to create little whirlpools of extended clarifications that never seem to resolve, but rather create sub-whirlpools, at least in terms of how I experience them. This may be strictly a problem on my end. I'm going to bow out from this instance and hope that one day we can find some other way to discuss these issues.

I also think our dialogue is creating a sub-thread within a thread, which in itself is more than enough reason to close that particular issue, without any reference to my lack of comprehension. If you'd like, we can start another thread - slowly - although I suggest waiting for an upcoming major thread I am currently composing.

Continued posts on this thread should address the issues discussed by John, Peter, Christopher, and (of course) Nathan, aka Paganini.

Best,
Ron

Hmm ...

It's not that difficult. If my character has a pattern of behavior established by a lot of play (but no game rules) and the presented moral question doesn't give me any reason* to consider changing that pattern then it seems to me you don't get Narrativist play.

It would follow that the stronger that established mode of behavior of the character is, the more dramatic the situation must be to get Narrativist play.

* This may be because the delima doesn't engage me as a player or because changing my character's behavior for the present delima would be dramatically inconsistent with previously established behavior patterns for that character.

-Marco

Grrr!

Marco, didn't you read my post all the way through? We're not discussing the issue further in this thread. Later. Slowly. Not here.

Please work with me here; we have a lot of new people being active in this forum and the last thing they need is some bleeding-edge nuance getting (however incompetently on my part) dissected by people who've been mulling over this noise for years.

Best,
Ron

Actually, I think that at least what Marco is trying to get at is exactly what Nathan asked as the topic of the thread. Maybe he's not discussing it clearly, but I think it is relevant. Nathan's suggestions at the start was:

Paganini wrote: Moving on from there, I'm pondering the definition of Narrativism.
...
I would suggest that Narrativism be expanded to include the addressing of theme on a meta-level, by the players via narrative device and the like, rather than limiting it exclusively to PC action.

Hi John,

Thanks for clarifying Marco's point for me. I see it now.

However, I've addressed this issue before, with the concept that private player choices (or anyone's notions at all) are irrelevant for GNS except insofar as they are demonstrated through actual play. Creative Agenda is a subset of Exploration, and Exploration exists only in the medium of communication among the people who are role-playing together.

That ought to clear up quite a bit about this topic, I hope. It boils down, now, to this question:

Is Nathan's concept of a "fatalistic game" consistent with the kind of circumscribed, fly-in-amber, shadow-play that Christopher (in my view) describes so well? If so, then my response both to you and to Marco is "Yes" - Simulationism. Not even remotely controversial, I think.

If not, though (and I ask Nathan to clarify), then Christopher's and my points apply - Narrativist play is indeed possible, regardless of whether the character is "consistent" and "would never change" in terms of concept. My current impression is that Nathan was approaching the question from this angle, based on his reference to devices that clarify to the group that the question is indeed open.

Let's see if an example near and dear to your heart will help. Gunnar, in Njal's Saga, is of course a fixed-in-amber character because of the medium (an already-created character in a story being told to us, the audience). But let's say instead that he is a character in a role-playing game, which even now has reached the point where he has knuckled under to various aggravating provocations, several times ... and yet another one comes along.

Does he turn on his wife (who's responsible for many of these hassles)? Does he leave for a far-off land? Does he knuckle under again? Does he finally snap and call feud?

What I'm saying is that at this point of play, we do not know whether Gunnar is (a) a take-no-shit man who has been acting "against himself" for a while now and is thus ready to explode, or (b) a wimp, despite his physical prowess, who's been showing his true colors all along lately. Even the player, who might well have been playing Gunnar exactly as he imagined him incontrovertibly to be in these terms, doesn't know until the decision-points of play really happen. Even if the player just rolls along and plays Gunnar "as conceived," without even self-examining the significance of the decision, that is still a decision.

That would be Narrativist.

The non-Narrativist version is simply that everyone knows and reinforces, during play, the written-down or verbalized agreement that Gunnar is X and that is all there is to it. Even a more complex game system like Pendragon, in which shifts from X to Y and back are explicitly structured, falls into this category.

I hasten to add that both methods of play are fascinating, fun, and rewarding, for entirely different kinds of aesthetic satisfaction.

Best,
Ron

Hi all (and cross-posed with Ron's latest response),

John, here's how I see it:

(But, first, quickly, the "locked in" characters I was referring to were in a style of play advanced by one person -- the idea that the player finds out he's going to now enact an already told story wiht his PC. Now, that's really specific, I've never had any specific experience with it, so I'm ready to drop that sliver of things and move on to matters that I've seen everyone deal with.)

Let's look at the samurai with Code of Honor.

If the player really, really has decided that his guy will budge for nothing... ever, no matter what comes his way through play... Well, I'm not going to be the one to say he's not a "character" because then we're all going to get in a big huricane about trying to define "character." I can say that a character that is played without the possibility of choice is more like a chair or a bullet -- he takes up physical space, responds to phyiscs -- but each time its his or her time to do something, everyone at the table already knows what's going to happen, so its kind of dull. (We'll get to the secret part in a moment.)

Say, on the other hand, the novel and the movie The Godfather had never been written or made, and Gabrial Marquez like, a group of role players were actually playing out incidents of that family in a role playing session, with all the characters of the movie intact.

When the character Sonny got the phone call from his sister that his brother in law had just beaten her (ie, the GM provides the Bang of the phone call to player), we, as fellow players, already know that he's an emotional, violent hot head.... There are a million things he might do in response... And to charge out to her place to confront the brother in law alone is one of them... And when he does that we can think, "Well, there he goes again..." As he does the same thing again. But its still a choice. The player could have Sonny affected by his father's injuries and think, "This is getting crazy. I'm not running the family well, I' better talk to Tom first, get some advice. Bring some body guards, anything." Ultimately, the fact that he does *exactly what his enemies expecte him to do* so they can kill him doesn't change the fact that he could have done something different. And it's those choices that keep us leaning forward (or leaning back -- oh god, here comes the train wreck) while watching a movie or playing a compelling Narrativist game.

As for keeping it a secret from the other players... I have no idea, again, if he's a "character" or not. Relentless, yes. Loyal, yes. But as the GM threw more and more options at him (will you stay loyal even if it means your son's death, this village's death, the death of your family), he would be one hard-assed son of a bitch.

I simply think it would be more fun as the player of the character to not make that decision and discover the choices as I go.

For example, Beowulf lives for heroic honor. He really doesn't know what else to do with himself. By the time he's an old man and his lands are falling apart there's this dragon that shows up.

He's got a choice. Deal with it or not. If we were playing a similiar story as an RPG, say with a guy call Abrack, and Abrack sits back down and says, "My time is over," we get one kind of story. There are limits, apparently, to this heroic honor. He thought it was going to sustain him, and apparently it didn't. Ba-dum.

If he says, "And this one, too," we get a different kind of story. We get a story where apparently it's not about the results of the heroic action, but the need to live it out no matter what -- not because of the results (there's a really good chance he's going to die this time around), but becuase that's the only thing to do.

If I were the guy playing Abrack, I'd like to have had those options from start to finish, if only because not knowing and discovering (for me) is more fun than already knowing. I mean, I can end up being the Samurai hard-ass -- but each time the GM throws the next Bang at me, I'm actually engaged in sorting out what's going to happen next. (Your milage may vary.)

Christopher

Ron Edwards wrote: Even if the player just rolls along and plays Gunnar "as conceived," without even self-examining the significance of the decision, that is still a decision.

That would be Narrativist.

The non-Narrativist version is simply that everyone knows and reinforces, during play, the written-down or verbalized agreement that Gunnar is X and that is all there is to it. Even a more complex game system like Pendragon, in which shifts from X to Y and back are explicitly structured, falls into this category.

I'm beginning to appreciate why Ron is always insisting that more information about the actual play is needed to judge GNS creative agenda.

Early on I took the basic concept of "GNS is about decision-making" to heart, which means I tend to assume that the only really important thing to observe is the decisions the players actually make. Sure, Ron talks about other observable aspects of play behavior like social approval/disapproval signals and OOC commentary, but Creative Agenda is still mostly about the players' decisions about what the characters do, right?

And it just hits me today, aw crap, no it isn't.

And assuming that it is leads to confusion and problems. For instance, the topic at hand.

When a player makes a predictable decision, that is, a decision that conforms to (someone's, let's say the observer's) prior expectations, it might create a false appearance that the player was not engaged, at the moment of decision, with the issue about which the decision was made. But concluding this, on the basis of the decision alone, is unjustified.

We have to ask: is it possible for a decision to be [fill in an adjective of your choice:] real, meaningful, important, interesting, dramatic, Narrativist-Premise-addressing*] and still be predictable? (*That's not to imply that all these adjectives are synonymous, only that the question could be posed about any of them.) For instance, could a player who predictably chooses that his character, a soldier in a dirty little war, consistently acts so as to maximize expediency at the cost of humanity, possibly be addressing a question of emotional import about the morality of war? I believe the answer, for all those possible adjectives, is yes. That is, it is possible, though it is not assured (since Gamist or Simulationist play could also result in predictable character decisions, for many different reasons).

I have a perhaps far-fetched personal example for how predictability and meaningful choice can coexist. Six months ago I decided I was ready to lose a lot of weight. Subsequently I took certain actions toward this end, such as eating very few snacks very infrequently. If you'd observed me during this time, focusing only on what I did and didn't actually eat, you'd probably conclude that I was on a diet that prohibited me from eating snacks. But if you'd observed my overall behavior more carefully, a few clues contradicting that hypothesis might have become apparent. For instance, I didn't dispose of or lock away the snack foods; I continued to buy my favorite snack foods at the supermarket; and when I did eat snacks, I made a big production out of it rather than sneaking them.

I explained to my wife (in almost exactly these words) that I preferred to decide thirty times a day not to eat a certain snack, than to tell myself that I wasn't "allowed" to eat it. For some reason related to my own personality, this little technical distinction made a great deal of difference to me.

There's plenty of diet advice that runs entirely contradictory to that, telling you to put snacks as much as possible out of your mind, don't even consider the possibility of eating them, don't buy them, don't keep them around. Don't, in Forge terms, "address them." That's probably good advice for many. But I was deliberately and consciously "addressing" them: thinking about them, talking about them, all but outright obsessed with them, and constantly making decisions about them.

A simple synopsis of my behavior, if you limited it to what I ate, would be indistinguishable from the behavior of someone following the "put it out of your mind" advice. In both cases, you could reliably predict non-snacking and you might therefore mistakenly conclude that snacking wasn't being "addressed" in either case.

Similarly, if you observe a player playing a character whose depicted decisions never deviate from a predictable expression of a character's fate or behavior pattern or moral stance, and are never portrayed as an internal moral struggle for the character, and are not difficult for the player to make, you might conclude that Premise is not being addressed. But you might be mistaken. Looking at the decisions themselves will probably not tell you whether that's the case or not. That's why you have to also observe the details of the processes by which players are making their decisions, and all the other behavior that makes up play.

(This is going to require a bit of rethinking of the concept of Congruence.)

- Walt

What Walt said.

And yes, it throws Congruence all kerflooey. That's why I always argued against an over-atomized, one-player-at-a-time approach to GNS issues.

John, all I have to say is that it's group involvement with anything in play that makes it anything in terms of GNS (assuming that "thing 1" is appropriate for such an analysis). I'm getting used to the idea that nearly anything presented in terms of "My character does this" and "I felt like X when I did it" will be completely inadequate for GNS-talk.

Best,
Ron

Let me make sure I've got it, because this strikes me as an interesting way to get at an important GNS issue (and a great thread - thanks, everyone):

Player Sue has a character named Simon, who ALWAYS makes choice Y.

Sue "knows" from the beginning that she will always have Simon make choice Y.

After a fair amount of play, all the other participants become very clear that Simon is always going to make choice Y.

The question is, can all that still result in Narrativist play?

The answer is - sure, it possibly can. Because what we ask when looking at play to determine if G, N or S is happening is "what is being prioritized by the group as they play?" If we see people reveling in the issues that arise because Simon always does Y, it's Nar. If they're grooving on how neat it is that Simon is just like the typical hard-case character in the genre/setting in use - it's Sim. If there's some sort of esteem-reward being reinforced - because Sue is so "good" at being Simon, or because there's some reward to Sue for playing Simon this way, or etc. - then we've got some Gamism happening.

The appearance that having "pre-decided" actions (having an unconflicted character) means you can't address Nar Premise is false, because the addressing of Premise occurs as a social event amongst the real people as play occurs. Nothing you decide about a character ahead of play can remove the possibilty that the participants will get excited about Premise as play occurs. Some decisions (maybe even Sue's "always have Simon go Y" choice) might make it harder to do Nar, others might make it easier, but you can neither prevent nor ensure Nar in this manner.

What matters is how the participants as a group (including Sue) react to what Simon does. Which includes what they say to each other, what the players have their PCs do, what the GM has NPCs do - everything. That's what we'll look at to see if G, N or S is prioritized. Prioritized, because some stuff consistent with each of G, N and S will (or at least can) always be going on, in all play.

The context in which the Judge deals with the kill innocents vs. obey The Law situation has the potential to engage the participants in looking at interesting aspects of a Premise, no matter if we already know that the player would never have her Judge kill innocents. At least, I hope that's the way it works,

Gordon

PS - Ron says that "My character does this" and "I felt like X when I did it" will be completely inadequate for GNS-talk," and I agree (inadequate being - IMO - an important word to use rather than "useless") - but I do NOT think that means GNS is unable to help us address questions like "what should I have my charcater do" or "how can I get myself/my players to feel like X when we play."

John Kim wrote: This is the question of PC action. The samurai example from your (Ron's) Simulationism essay is a good one, I think. My interpretation of Nathan's question is that in a fatalist game, you have a PC whose actions are circumscribed just like the samurai in your example. As he puts it, Premise in this game is addressed on a meta-level through narrative device and the like -- not through the PC's choices. The player has free choice at the start of the game on what his PC is like, but he decides on a character which embodies certain behaviors in an over-the-top manner, thus leaving little doubt as to what the PC will choose. The group decides at the start to hold to this choice. (Nathan -- is this right?)

A lot of this revolves around some disagreement regarding what exactly fatalist play is; and in reviewing Fusingate's metatextual play ideas it has occurred to me that I have experienced something like it. Bear with me, and perhaps I can illuminate the matter.

In Multiverser play, I've several times run players through The Prisoner of Zenda. Although few have read the book, the story is still familiar to most in one form or another--and that matters. Because in Multiverser you're playing yourself, there's very little of what is usually called "out of character knowledge"--you're on your honor, usually, not to use information you have learned since you started playing, but in the main if you know it your character knows it. Thus it is entirely likely that the character will recognize the story.

The question is what will he then do?

Here is a non-exhaustive list of possibilities:

• Perceive that he's on the cusp of getting in a heap of trouble, and look for a way to get out of it entirely.• Recognize what's happening and attempt to prevent it from the beginning--find a way to persuade the king not to drink the wine his half brother sent, and so see to it that the king makes it to his own coronation.• Failing that, decide to take what he knows and use it to work to his advantage--play the loyalists until you're in a position to seize the throne for yourself, execute Michael, set yourself up as king, and marry Flavia, all without ever letting on that you're not the real king.• Embrace the situation, and set out to do at least as well as Rudolf Rassendil in preserving the King's throne and returning him to his rightful place--but by using your own abilities and plotting your own course through the situation.• Recognize your place in the Rudolf Rassendil role and play out the story as closely to the original as you can manage.


I think that the metatextual play examples are in some ways analogous to this last option (with the caveat that the names and settings have been changed to obscure the story). In that play style, it appears that recognizing your role in the story and playing it out as closely to the original as you can is the preferred choice; this of course means that the game is now fated, as presumably if you did what Rassendil did, you'll get the same outcome and complete the story as written.

There is still the choice involved in deciding whether you're going to follow the fated path; indeed, there is a sense in which that choice is ongoing (as presumably at any moment the player could change his mind, reject the known story, and strike out in a new direction). But if we assume that the referee is running a known story and the player has committed himself to bringing his character through that story as accurately as possible, we have fatalistic roleplay.

It isn't merely (as some have supposed) that the player has constructed a character who will always do the noble (or ignoble) thing); it goes beyond that to include that we already know all the situations which will come, how the character will respond to those situations, and what the outcome of this will be.

I join those who scratch their heads and wonder whether this is really a role playing game at that point. It sounds more like it falls into the same category as Civil War Reenactments (whatever category that is). Yet I recognize that in both Fusingate's metatextual play examples and my Prisoner of Zenda example there is real play leading up to the moment of recognition, where the player makes the choice as to whether to pursue the fated story or take a different course. Further, certainly in my play, and I suspect in Fusingate's as well, there are still the issues of whether the player can and will stick to the course as plotted--he might fail in his effort to do something at which the hero of the story succeeded, or he might balk at some point and take a different path. Thus even though play is said to be "fated" at this point, it is only so because the player continues to choose to follow the ordained path.

Anyway, I hope this clarifies the "fatalist play" concept to some degree.

--M. J. Young

Nicely put, MJ. Also, in my games, the idea is to give people multiple options of fitting into the myth so that choice is not narrowed so dramatically. It's good to work with a myth system where there are multiple conflicting accounts of the cataclysmic event and some ambiguity about how precisely it resolves.

Stuart.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: The question is, can all that still result in Narrativist play?

The answer is - sure, it possibly can. Because what we ask when looking at play to determine if G, N or S is happening is "what is being prioritized by the group as they play?" If we see people reveling in the issues that arise because Simon always does Y, it's Nar. If they're grooving on how neat it is that Simon is just like the typical hard-case character in the genre/setting in use - it's Sim.

Paganini wrote: John, yep. The specific reference thread I linked to dealt with a game in which, by virtue of a character creation technique, would produce theme via purely causal play. In other words, during character generation, the characters were constructed with such thematic strength that, if they behaved "as expected," they *would not deviate* from the dramatic course. Simply doing "what my guy would do" was sufficient to produce theme.

John Kim wrote:

Gordon C. Landis wrote: The question is, can all that still result in Narrativist play?

The answer is - sure, it possibly can. Because what we ask when looking at play to determine if G, N or S is happening is "what is being prioritized by the group as they play?" If we see people reveling in the issues that arise because Simon always does Y, it's Nar. If they're grooving on how neat it is that Simon is just like the typical hard-case character in the genre/setting in use - it's Sim.

I don't think it's that simple. For example, Pendragon may easily be absolutely full of moral issues -- and the players revel in it. However, it is apparently not Narrativist because the others in the group are involved in the PC's choices (by enforcing the Personality Traits and Passions).

I'm still sorting this out myself, but that's what I understand at present.

What I'm saying is that at this point of play, we do not know whether Gunnar is (a) a take-no-shit man who has been acting "against himself" for a while now and is thus ready to explode, or (b) a wimp, despite his physical prowess, who's been showing his true colors all along lately. Even the player, who might well have been playing Gunnar exactly as he imagined him incontrovertibly to be in these terms, doesn't know until the decision-points of play really happen. Even if the player just rolls along and plays Gunnar "as conceived," without even self-examining the significance of the decision, that is still a decision.

That would be Narrativist.

The non-Narrativist version is simply that everyone knows and reinforces, during play, the written-down or verbalized agreement that Gunnar is X and that is all there is to it. Even a more complex game system like Pendragon, in which shifts from X to Y and back are explicitly structured, falls into this category.

I think the key is simply the enjoyment of premise as distinct from theme.

Enjoying Gunnar as an exemplar of, say, doomed violence is perfectly compatible with sim. Enjoying the fact that you get to choose whether Gunnar is an exemplar of doomed violence - whether that decision happens at character generation or at a later point - is more compatible with narrativism.

That there are a bunch of times when it's not really explicit what people are grooving off - which is why, I think, the 'instance of play' stuff is so vague - and that just means there's a bunch of times when GNS is irrelevent to what's happening at the table. Any theory is going to get a bit shaky if you try to apply it to everything.

Ian Charvill wrote: Enjoying Gunnar as an exemplar of, say, doomed violence is perfectly compatible with sim. Enjoying the fact that you get to choose whether Gunnar is an exemplar of doomed violence - whether that decision happens at character generation or at a later point - is more compatible with narrativism.

Hi M. J. and Stuart,

Thanks for the example and clarification of the metatextual stuff.

I woke up this morning and thought this:

All the "Prisoner of Zenda" options listed are, in fact, ethical and moral choices. Even the last one, where the character hewes to the original tale. The trick is, we can focus on it being a variation of the story, but we don't have to. Either way, it's still a bunch of ethical and moral choices. In this regard, it is, if the group is gathered 'round grooving on the moral and ethical choices, feeding each other options, laughing and complimenting each other on the decisions made and such, Narrativist play.

Now, if the group is gathered 'round, and someone blows a die roll and doesn't successfully impress upon someone he really is the king, and the group's reaction is a delighted "Oh, no!" and everyone scrambles to figure out how to get the "story" back "on track," we have what some folks here are calling Fatalist RPG. But the truth is that its also a slice of Simulation play. Really. It doesn't stand apart from GNS.

Although most folks get obssessed with Simulation as an attempt to simulate reality ("What if there really were elves and magic in 14th century Europe?") or the emotional implications of being My Guy in this situation, back in Chicago my group played a lot of Pendragon, CoC, Justice Inc. -- and the entire point was to create the appropriate feel of the fiction. We were exploring the style of storytelling, and making damned sure the right "kind" of story came out of the fiction.

It took me a while going through GNS to understand that "simulating" textual concerns and not reality was still a form of simulation. And if the gang is gathered around having a great time steering the story "back" on track with fumbles, mistakes, and innappropriate responses in scenes, (which is what would be required for M.J.'s last example if it wasn't played as Narrativism (which would simply be the characters making moral and ethical choices), then its a slice of Simulationism... I'll call it Textual Simulationism. (I do believe the term Fatalistic RPG completely misses the boat on this matter. But that's just me.)

The moment though, the characters are engaged with the choice of how to behave (even respecting that the players or characters know blowing the story is a moral choice; ie: heroquesting), we've got the possibility of Nar play. And to find out which, we'd need a lot more details about how the group is responding to what's going on -- where, if you will, the "fun" is.

Thus, to know whether Stuarts group was running Nar or Sim as they make their choices through playing the myth, we'd need those details.

Stuart brought up playing through "myth." I'll remind all that I brought up heroquesting on my first post on this thread. (Stuart, if you're not familiar with it, you might want to go check out the Hero Quest board... I think you'll find it fascinating.) The fact that the PCs are on a mythical quest in actual myth, living out a story they already know -- a story that they can botch, that they can change -- doesn't make it about the text (simuilation) if the focus is on the choices at hand.

So first, this kind of play is in play already -- heroquest uses it, M.J. uses it, Stuart uses it. But, second, I don't believe it is that strange or odd. Depending on how its played, its Narrativism (whether the characters are aware they're in a story or not (and the Picard example is *exactly* this), or Sim, where the delight is the group keeping up with the story.

Oops -- and I supposed it could shade into Gamism as well, depending on how its played. (For example, kudos being handed to players who come up with the cleverest ways to keep the story "on track.")

Which is my whole point: I think the concern about playing a "story" -- the whole metatextual angle -- is a red haring. What matters is how the group plays that determines what's going on in terms of GNS, not the nifty feature of playing in a "story." (Which is, by the way, nifty.)


Now, as for the Relentless Character (the character fixed in a behavior before play begins and set there forever), which is a whole seperate issue; and the Fated Character (who is going to end up one way, no matter what choices he makes), which is a third issue... I'm stepping back for the moment. But let's just not try to tangle these three issues up.


Take care,
Christopher

Paganini wrote: So let's extrapolate to an RPG. We've got a character. All the player know exactly what that character will do / what will happen to that character. It's not a matter of making the same choice over and over, there's literally no choice involved. Can we still have narrativis play by allowing the *players* to address premise through *player choice?* Let's say that the characters are hardwired to act a certain way when faced with a particular thematic choice (the premise to be addressed), but that that players are given directorial control over situation so that the consequences of each thematic moment is up to the players. The choice that the character makes will always be the same... but the players get to decide what that choice *means.*

Christopher Kubasik wrote: Now, if the group is gathered 'round, and someone blows a die roll and doesn't successfully impress upon someone he really is the king, and the group's reaction is a delighted "Oh, no!" and everyone scrambles to figure out how to get the "story" back "on track," we have what some folks here are calling Fatalist RPG. But the truth is that its also a slice of Simulation play. Really. It doesn't stand apart from GNS.
(...further discussion snipped...)
Now, as for the Relentless Character (the character fixed in a behavior before play begins and set there forever), which is a whole seperate issue; and the Fated Character (who is going to end up one way, no matter what choices he makes), which is a third issue... I'm stepping back for the moment.

Paganini wrote: So let's extrapolate to an RPG. We've got a character. All the player know exactly what that character will do / what will happen to that character. It's not a matter of making the same choice over and over, there's literally no choice involved. Can we still have narrativis play by allowing the *players* to address premise through *player choice?* Let's say that the characters are hardwired to act a certain way when faced with a particular thematic choice (the premise to be addressed), but that that players are given directorial control over situation so that the consequences of each thematic moment is up to the players. The choice that the character makes will always be the same... but the players get to decide what that choice *means.*

Hi John,

If you read M.J. post on the previous page of this thread about Prisoner of Zenda is, you'll find exactly what my example was about.

As for the misuse of the term, I apologize for apparently misunderstanding you, but I can only add, it's been tossed around rather lightly by many people on this thread. M.J.'s Zenda example, for example, doesn't only posit that the ending is fated, but that the entire story is followed as closely as possible. You'll notice that Stuart added at this point that that's exactly what *he* had been talking about. You'll notice that people are still talking about Relentless charactes and Fated characters on the same thread. I was simply trying to keep all these points clear to make sure they didn't get tangled again.

I certainly appreciate your efforts to do the same.

Oh, and did I miss the clarification? I've just reviewed all the posts form M.J.'s to mine. If it's there, I'm sorry I missed it. Again.

Now. Let's end this nonsense, shall we?

You seem obsessed with this distinction about characters who change and grow and those who don't -- and that stories with characters who don't change or grow don't have a premise.

I need you to keep in mind three things: a) RPG stories usually have several characters b) plenty of stories (that clearly have a premise) have characters that don't change, and c) Theme in a story is often revealed by contrasting how different characters respond to the premise.

Examples of characters who don't change are: Beowulf. Sonny from "The Godfather." Hanibal Lector.

These characters don't change. They don't grow. They are themselves through and through... Are you telling me that there's no premise that gets answered in these stories?

I'd like it if everone could stand back a moment and let John answer... Because this threads been jerking everyone around. Let's get down to brass talks.

Beowulf. The Godfather. Silence of the Lambs. All contain characters that don't grow or change. Do they have a premise? Yes or no.

Christopher

Christopher Kubasik wrote: Examples of characters who don't change are: Beowulf. Sonny from "The Godfather." Hanibal Lector.

These characters don't change. They don't grow. They are themselves through and through... Are you telling me that there's no premise that gets answered in these stories?

I'd like it if everone could stand back a moment and let John answer...

Hi John,

In your post, you commit a shift of topic which is very common - and fatal to the discussion.

For example, suppose I have a game where the GM tells the players what to do, and they merely improvise dialogue and little details. I direct them to reproduce the events of the Godfather. Now the game has produced a narrative which clearly addresses a premise, but as I understand it the game isn't Narrativist. As I understand it, this is true even if the players are all grooving on how premise-addressing the narrative is.

Ron,

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying--mainly because I don't see why you're saying John is changing the topic. John plainly and clearly says it's not narrativist. He's not changing the topic, he's in agreement with you (his quote in the section you quoted: "but as I understand it the game isn't Narrativist"). Are you saying that the group in this exercise "isn't roleplaying?"

Secondly, I think the group in question is participating*--they're not just "wittnessing" the narrative--they are acting it out, creating it through play (instantiating?).

I think you might be arguing that in such events there is either "no premise" or there is premise but it's "not addressed." Looking at your response you don't say "there is no Premise" you say, instead "they are not addressing Premise, they are witnessing it, and nothing more." (emphasis added)

So that means it exists and the key missing element is ... what? Empowerment? A stated intent to experience the premise as as answered by another media? (I'm not clear the players are unempowered--if we all agree to do 'X' then do we lose our power when we do 'X'?) But I think that's the point John was making about fatalistic characters and a clash with Narrativism. I think he's saying that creating a fatalisitc character is the same as a decision to act-out the Godfather (i.e. Not Narrativist).

-Marco
* A movie will still run if no one watches. The RPG requires the agreement of the people involved to keep moving. That's not an entirely passive role--in fact, there's a whole spectrum of active-to-passive and it looks to me like "wittnessing" is an arbitrary line drawn somewhere--but it's not clear to me where (although I agree this group has way agreed to be on the passive side).

Wait. Stop.

Guys. John moved the discussion from my simple, clear question, to a whole side example that has nothing to do with the term Fatalistic RPG... and now Ron and Marco are having a side conversation on this non-pertinent topic.

I'm not saying it might not be valuable topic, I'm saying, I fucking want to know if there's any value to the Fatalistic notion at all... And like a blob of mercury that keeps sliding out under my fingers, I'm determined to hunt the son of a bitch down until I have it. Let's see what happens if we stick to "Fatalist RPG."

John, so... there are stories with premise with characters that don't change, right?

So if the group is addressing premise, and that addressing of premise is one of the creative agendas of the group, and one of PCs has been determined to make the same choice again and again in terms of the premise... in this case (not another case), how is this not Narrativist play for the group? One player has opted to be a kind of "immovable" object in the tale that all the players can compare the shifting characters against.

Given that it's Narrativist, the player with the Relentless character can set his character up for fascinating revelations of how far his character will go and still hold his behavior, the other players can encourage the same, and the GM can encourage the same. And the Relentless PC's player can engineer scenes where his character and another charactger get to be in scenes where the premise is explored, and again, the tension between the "immovable object" and the PC who might choose the same or differntly is explored. That's an exploration of Premise.

In what way, how, in what way, please, tell me, is this, in this case, as posited by your definition (not another situation, that isn't your definition), is this not Narrativist play?

Because, really, there's nothing new here. There. Just. Is. Not. The fact that a character doesn't change or grow has NOTHING to do with whether or not the group is prioritizing premise as part of the creative agenda. In fact, in the second paragraph preceding this one, I've made it clear a group might do exactly this to accentuate the creative agenda of premise and narrativist play.

So. In the type of play described, in the actual example in this post, using the actual topic of conversation on this thread, is there in fact a contradiction between a Relentless character and, if the group is going for this, Narrativist play?

If not, can we just say, "Hmmm, that Relentless character sounds cool for a Narrativist game, I'd like to give that a try." If there is a contradiction, please explain.

Christopher

Christopher Kubasik wrote:
Given that it's Narrativist, the player with the Relentless character can set his character up for fascinating revelations of how far his character will go and still hold his behavior, the other players can encourage the same, and the GM can encourage the same. And the Relentless PC's player can engineer scenes where his character and another charactger get to be in scenes where the premise is explored, and again, the tension between the "immovable object" and the PC who might choose the same or differntly is explored. That's an exploration of Premise.

In what way, how, in what way, please, tell me, is this, in this case, as posited by your definition (not another situation, that isn't your definition), is this not Narrativist play?

Christopher

The non-Narrativist version is simply that everyone knows and reinforces, during play, the written-down or verbalized agreement that Gunnar is X and that is all there is to it. Even a more complex game system like Pendragon, in which shifts from X to Y and back are explicitly structured, falls into this category.

well, big and inappropriate boots back on here, but to my mind, the difference between the narrativist and non-narrativist boils down to "Does the group give a damn about adressing the premise?"

Doesn't even matter if it's concious or unconcious: if the question in the premise is what people are concerned about during play, then that's nar. If they're more concerned with the mechanics of accurately modelling character responses within the situation, then it's probably more sim than nar.

Looking at the examples given, including mine, we seem to be focussing on the what of simulated events defining the nar / sim boundary (which, of course, is more flexible than a slinky), rather than looking at what's getting the players stoked about these situations.

What does it matter whether the characters are able to address the premise adequately? The engagement with the premise occurs (or not) amongst the players.

I'd go as far as to say that player interest in the inability of characters to adequately address the premise is in itself a good indicator of narrativist play, just as, say, the playing of an ineffective character may consitute a higher degree of Step On Up for gamist play ("anyone can survive Dark Sun as halfling assassin: I'm going to play as a one legged kobold mage with scrofula because I've got the cojones for it!").

Sim differs from nar and gam in this, but that's for another thread.

Marco, I think in Ron's statement, it's non-narrativist because the implicit attitude amongst the players is that Gunnars reactions with regard to addressing premise is uninteresting enough to be left in the background. Were the same group to drift towards nar play, the simulated responses of Gunnar could remain unchanged; the attitude of players towards them couldn't.

Of course, I'm patronisingly interpreting Ron's comments to contradict Marco's point, so I fully expect both feet to fall on me squarely now.

Hello,

You can wear those boots any time, Pete. What you say works for me, and same goes for Christopher.

Marco, there's nothin' I can say. I either flatly disagree with you, or one of us is misinterpreting the other's point, or both. This is that whirlpool-thing happening again.

Best,
Ron

pete_darby wrote:
Marco, I think in Ron's statement, it's non-narrativist because the implicit attitude amongst the players is that Gunnars reactions with regard to addressing premise is uninteresting enough to be left in the background. Were the same group to drift towards nar play, the simulated responses of Gunnar could remain unchanged; the attitude of players towards them couldn't.

Of course, I'm patronisingly interpreting Ron's comments to contradict Marco's point, so I fully expect both feet to fall on me squarely now.

Marco,

Wait, wait, wait.....

For god's sake. There is no circumscribed path. It's not what we're talking about.

John's Godfather example assumes that we're all recreating the text of the Godfather. But this very notion is something I addressed aggressively in the first half of the thread and demolished as a concern for this thread. John empathically agreed that this idea of recreating the tale is not the agenda here. (John might have brought this up by accident, since he tried to take me to task for addressing the matter at all in my response MJ's post.) He's clearly on record as saying recreating the narrative is not what the thread is about, it's not what "Fatalistic RPGs" are about.

Please don't cloud the discussion with this issue.

Pete's simply right on this matter. In Ron's example of the non-narrativist version, PC X behaves a certain way, and everyone accepts that and that's all there is to that. In the Narrativist version, PC X behaves a certain way, and, along wiht the rest of the PCs, character X's behavior is tested and explored along the lines of the premise. By answering the premise, even if it's the same damned answer every time, PC X's player is playing along with the concerns of a Narrativist game.

I'm not saying it might not be a subtle distinction. I am saying it is a profound distinction in the context of the creative agenda and the resulting play.

***

Now, please, for the sake of all that is sane and holy, don't jerk the discussion into a theoretical example that is a completely different set of circumstances than the one we are dissecting.

In my previous post, I posited an example of play with a group of player with an narrativist creative agenda using a Relentless Characters and asked if John (and, you too Marco, if you want to play) can tell me where the contradiction is in *that* example.

Anyone can play, but they're going to have to play by the rules. Two pages back I asked for a definition of Fatalistic play. On the last page I got one. We even weeded out two possible isses that were floating around an made it clear we were not talking about either of them: the recreation of narrative, or the character who's fate is already determined.

Fatalistic play, as clearly defined by John, is when a PC is given a behavior that will not change through play. He is for all practical purposes answering the premise the same way every time its asked. The character does not grow or change. John says that this means there is in fact no Narrativist play in this case. I disagree. I've laid out why in my previous post. Can anyone actually contradict me within the example I offered? Because as far as I can tell, its Narrativist play with a little twist. A fine twist. But nothing that creates a special case.

*That's* what we're working with here, folks, so please stick to it.

Christopher

Ron, as quoted by Marco wrote:
The non-Narrativist version is simply that everyone knows and reinforces, during play, the written-down or verbalized agreement that Gunnar is X and that is all there is to it. Even a more complex game system like Pendragon, in which shifts from X to Y and back are explicitly structured, falls into this category.

Gordon C. Landis wrote:
That's the situation in which a Fatalistic approach can lead to non-Nar play - if ALL that is happening (or more carefully, the prioritized thing that is happening), for EVERYONE, is reinforcement of the written down or verbalized agreements about EVERYTHING in play being X, Y or Z and etc.

In other situations, like the one Christopher describes, the Fatalistic (or Relentless) approach for a particular character(s) can lead to Nar play.

At least, that's how I'm seeing it,

Gordon

Even if the player just rolls along and plays Gunnar "as conceived," without even self-examining the significance of the decision, that is still a decision.

That would be Narrativist.

Hey Marco,

I think perhaps you need to try and re-absorb the whole thing together. Focusing on just a sentence or two can only lead to madness. ;)

Ron Edwards wrote: Let's see if an example near and dear to your heart will help. Gunnar, in Njal's Saga, is of course a fixed-in-amber character because of the medium (an already-created character in a story being told to us, the audience). But let's say instead that he is a character in a role-playing game, which even now has reached the point where he has knuckled under to various aggravating provocations, several times ... and yet another one comes along.

Does he turn on his wife (who's responsible for many of these hassles)? Does he leave for a far-off land? Does he knuckle under again? Does he finally snap and call feud?

What I'm saying is that at this point of play, we do not know whether Gunnar is (a) a take-no-shit man who has been acting "against himself" for a while now and is thus ready to explode, or (b) a wimp, despite his physical prowess, who's been showing his true colors all along lately. Even the player, who might well have been playing Gunnar exactly as he imagined him incontrovertibly to be in these terms, doesn't know until the decision-points of play really happen. Even if the player just rolls along and plays Gunnar "as conceived," without even self-examining the significance of the decision, that is still a decision.

That would be Narrativist.

The non-Narrativist version is simply that everyone knows and reinforces, during play, the written-down or verbalized agreement that Gunnar is X and that is all there is to it. Even a more complex game system like Pendragon, in which shifts from X to Y and back are explicitly structured, falls into this category.

Even the player, who might well have been playing Gunnar exactly as he imagined him incontrovertibly to be in these terms, doesn't know until the decision-points of play really happen.

Hi there,

Chris Edwards has nailed it, in my view. And I'll reinforce an earlier point that, in my view, the observational difference between the distinction is extremely marked: how the people treat one another and demonstrate interest, attention, and input about what during play.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: In your post, you commit a shift of topic which is very common - and fatal to the discussion.

For example, suppose I have a game where the GM tells the players what to do, and they merely improvise dialogue and little details. I direct them to reproduce the events of the Godfather. Now the game has produced a narrative which clearly addresses a premise, but as I understand it the game isn't Narrativist. As I understand it, this is true even if the players are all grooving on how premise-addressing the narrative is.

...
I can't put it any more simply than that: you are not describing Narrativist play. The "narrative content" (for lack of a better word or term) of the imagined events is irrelevant. I don't see anything remotely controversial, ambiguous, or even vague in saying so.

Chris,

I read all that pretty carefully--and there are some things that still don't line up for me though:

1. Look at the Relentless Character. That character is absolute. It achieves Narrativist lift-off because the players are focused on the way the absolute character is used to address premise, yes? That's CK's claim, anyway, and it makes sense to me because it deals with the internal state of the players (or at least the precieved internal state). They're all over the Premise addressing action as explored through this rock of a character, right?

So it's not the "chance of change" as you suggest. It's the player engagement, right?

2. In Ron's example the player is just rolling right along--there's no foucs on the premise--it's all about the observer thinking that, through the act of play, a moral question is being asked and answered even if the player is not obviouslly jazzed about it. So it's not about player engagement, right?

So what's left? It looks to me like it's the possibility of choice. If Gunnar has the choice to change his ways it can be Narrativist, even if he doesn't. If he doesn't then it isn't (John made this point--I thought very clearly).

Would you say that?

Put this another way: if you have a 1-on-1 game where the player is playing Gunnar and is rolling along as expected (Ron's Narrativist scenario) how would you ever know if it was Narrativie play or not?

-Marco

Hello John,

I get the points of agreement, but we do not agree at all on what "address" means. I've decided to deal with that later.

Uh-oh, cross-posting too. Marco, it's digging deeper. Now we are all gummed up on my phrasing "rolling right along." I think you're reading it to mean something absolutely different from what I intended it to.

Moderator hat. Every post in the last few pages has been "what I meant when I said X to what you said you meant about Y." That is a bad thing.

So, I think it's time for Nathan (Paganini) to decide whether this thread needs to keep breathing. Let's all wait for his call.



Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: So, I think it's time for Nathan (Paganini) to decide whether this thread needs to keep breathing. Let's all wait for his call.

Gordon wrote: Regardless of the the "inevitability" of what's going on with the character's (or other imagined bits), the question is are the participant's (don't forget that the GM, if any, counts here too) doing stuff that's all about what the choice *means*