In light of some recent threads about narrativism in an undisclosed location, I'd like some accounts of nar play and addressing of premise. How specific was your Premise before the start of play? Were you thinking, "man, I'm gonna sit me down and play me some narrativism tonight" or did it just sorta end up that you played that way?

Here's my thinkin': People read about nar, and they see mention of this Egri guy, and moral this and ethics that, and they go, "whoa, I don't do that. That sounds weird."

So I think some accounts of play that weren't "Sorcerer turned up to 11" would be useful. What did you do? How much planning actually went into "I'm gonna set down and play me some narrativism tonight?"

Thanks in advance.

Okay, since I sort of started the thread that initiated this post, I might as well give the first example. What it ends up being defined as I don’t really care, but here goes the example.

A Fantasy campaign. The character is basically a farmer who finds out his father is the last of an ancient order dedicated to hunting down sorcerers as they believe a sorcerous child is destined to save the world in a future cataclysm. He has the love of his life, a girl he grew up with.

The crux is events happened to send them on divergent paths. The PC set of on a path to realise his destiny and set up this order, while the NPC ended up becoming an assassin. The last time they met they battled and the NPC fell off a roof believed dead. Think Batman and Catwoman – lovers but enemies due to different philosophies.

Premise: Can the character find love with the NPC?

I use the word Can because that’s how I phrased, and it since it sort of relates to the other thread I’ve kept it intact.

In game, the choices made by the character involved conflicts with his path (along with the others) to save the world, against finding some sort of relationship with the NPC. The two never matched, he always had to sacrifice one to save the other.

While the characters had all these adventures to save the world, the whole basis of the character was to see how this would turn out. Would he find redemption for the NPC? Would he sacrifice his destiny for her? Would he sacrifice her for his destiny?

In the final scenes of the campaign, we battled to save the world, but for me that was not the story, the story was how the relationship between the PC and NPC would end.

This is obviously paraphrased, but I believe it covers the bases. I’ll let others decide what it means in GNS:

I probably need to add...

This was my first game after being out of the hobby for about three years (I think) and being the dreaded armchair theorist. I was posting to the Forge, reading Sorcerer - getting the whole narrativist thing in my head as I understood it (I have to say, it was less defined back then I think - less stuff was flying around).

None of the other players thought this way. If they thought in terms of the above - they never said. So the game was not intentionally narrativist, it was intentionally nothing really, as no one but me new the terms.

How did it turn out in actually play? Hard to say, I'd say it was certainly not totally sim, but I'm loath to call it narrativist as I cannot see into the heads of the other players.

I know their are certainly all about character, developing them meaningfully with important decisions, etc, that's all I know.

Hi Ian,

"All about character" doesn't tell us anything, but "developing them meaningfully with important decisions" has a certain ring to it. But what I'm interested in is not what's in those other players' heads, invisible to all and and quite likely to themselves, but rather what they did in terms of appreciating your and one another's "meaningful decisions."

People appreciate one another, socially - and by that I mean actual behaviors among them, whatever they might be. Did that happen, in regard to those decisions you're talking about?

There's a difference between a person's appreciating my character's accent and my depiction of his contemporary prejudice in a 1920s Call of Cthulhu game, and his appreciation of the moment when my character decides to defy the Master at last (successfully or not) in a My Life with Master game, with or without an accent.

They're both "all about the character" - what matters, or rather, all we have to go on, is how that other person expresses his appreciation to me.

Best,
Ron

Okay, the first thing we have to understand is there is going to be some communication barrier here as I'm not defining everything in Forge terms, indeed, that's sort of the point of the post (and it was in the one that's being alluded to). I used to understand the Forge material better, but things have moved on way too far (in terms of the density of the theory and the terminology – or so it seems).

Taking that into account, let's try and move on a bit. I believe there was appreciation of each other’s ‘meaningful and important decisions'.

Everyone was interested in one of the characters goals to lead his people (though I admit this one involved little consequences and hard choices – it was more the doing it that was interesting).

We were all invested and interested in the meaningful decisions surrounding one character staying with the good guys or joining the sorcerous legions of the bad guys. He existed in the balance and had to choose.

The final battle in the game was about different things for different characters: for one it was living up to leading his people in the great battle, for another it was whether he battled for good or evil, for mine it was whether he could redeem the NPC and be happy with her. So the battle, while scene framed, excitingly edited and excellent to experience, was not overly the story being told (as far as I was concerned).

We were all as interested in each of these arcs and their ups and downs as we were our own.

I'd say it was never about accurately portraying the cultures or doing the correct accents. If such a player existed in the game I think we'd find him boring and slightly silly. The playing of the character is not so much about the accent, or role-playing some story about your grandfather around the campfire – just because it’s role-playing. It has to mean something, move something forward, make a difference to someone, or something (be it a relationship, the plot, or some other dynamic). Everyone appreciated that; we never role-played just to 'play the character' (as an aside, this happens a lot in NWN).

On this forum I have a habit of trying to answer, but not making things clearer – so hopefully I'm not continuing in that trend.

Hi Ian,

I'm not Ron, and I'm too short to play him on tv...

But here's my take: from your response so far, it sure sounds like you guys were playing with Premise being the core priority of appreciation when you were you playing. I'd offer the Buffy game mentioned over on RPG.net sounds quite Nar as well. But Ron is right: the key element of these disctinctions is what is being reinforced during play. It sound seems like these tough choices the PCs were drawn to and struggling through were the key.

But this is ostensibly a thread about Premise and making it clear: not a chance to hand out ribbons for naming different games the "right" style of play.

So I want to address briefly the phrasing of your Premise: "Can the character find love with the NPC?" I want to go on record as saying that's a fucking lovely Premise. But, there's a qualification: it's only fucking lovely with all the other details you wrote out before you typed the actual Premise. All those other details are found "within" the Premise, packed up tightly within it. The phrasing you have is emtional and grabby. In the context of the character's background, it's perfect.

Now, there are some people who seem to have bugs up their frontal lobes that a Premise has to be phrased a "certain way" or it is of no use as a Premise. In particular, it has to be set up in such a way that it sound dry and academic.

Not so. What matters to the Premise is that involves the choices everyone always is so quick to talk about, but also that it grabs us. Especially it must grab the player. And it certainly sounds like it grabbed you.

The fact that a Premise can be personalized -- Can This Person do this, when there's this to consider," is a brilliant way to phrase a Premise. It's brilliant because it tosses the PC right into the story, into action. It sets the story underway. You could rephrase your Premise easily to be more academic: "Is personal love worth betraying one's responsibilities to the world?" But, given the background set up, why go that dry route?

A not-Premise version of this might be: strip out all the backstory and ask, "Can the character find love with an NPC?" No Premise there. You might even have great scenes, terrfic commedy, sadness, Acadamy worthy acting of scenes of sorrow and romance. But they probably won't hang together. The focus might well be on using the rules to seduce somebody, or the cultural minutae of the courtship... But without that choice -- implicit in the background -- no Premise.

For this reason, every Premise mentioned the in Buffy game on the other thread is clearly a solid Nar Premise. However, it is always up to the players and GM to activate the Premise. But since that's what they came to the table to do (it's their priority, right), that won't be a problem.

So, to sum up for the viewers at home: Premise does not have to be dry, dull, nor stringently defined. The phrasing can be quite characters based, as long as, when unpacked, all these other choices larger than the character are revealed (as in Ian's example above.)

Christopher

And here's my example:

In Jesse's Gothic Fantasy Game, my guy was a minor noble who twenty years earlier summoned a demon to destory the man who was having an affair with his wife. The wife dies shortly thereafter in madness and grief. The PCs son, ten a the time, not knowing really what's going on, but knowing dad's getting wierd, runs away from home.

The demon stays. The demon takes the form of a golden haired boy. He lets my PC dote on him, never ages, always is a kind, loving boy. A "son" in fact, who never disapoints, and never will.

The PC's kicker was, "After twenty years, my son comes home asking for forgiveness."

The grabby Premise for me was, "Will my PC accept his son back?"

We could phrase it, "Is living in a fantasy of a family worth losing your flesh and blood," or some sort. But, given all the background, the first hooks me in right away.

Hope this helps.

Christopher

PS Oh, and here are the links to the Actual Play threads for this game (parts 1, 2 and 3).

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=2702&highlight=jesse

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=2807&highlight=gothic

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=2908&highlight=jesse

I'll give an example of Nar that "just happened," back in 1991-ish. I moved out to the San Jose area back in 89-90, and hadn't done much RPGing for 6 years or so. I found a group that was playing Talislanta, and joined in. I now think of the Talislanta system as basically "pre-3e d20," so we're sure not talking about a Nar-customized system here - I mean, Nar didn't exist as a term yet, but we're not even talking about Prince Valiant, Over the Edge, or something like that in terms of system.

Now, what most folks know about the world of Talislanta is that it is rich in detail and filled with many races. Which is true. But what turned out for us to actually be *important* about Talislanta was that it (or the slice of space and time we were playing in) was a world obsessed with "trueblood" links back to the ancient past and "mere" Submen - masters and slaves, with magical justifications for various opinions about who should fit into which categories.

I say that is what turned out to be important because there was no real planning for it. There was a situation in the world - a return of the supposed subman messiah who would unite the diverse "savages" for an assault on "civilization." The players made choices about their PCs, for whatever reasons - a Cymrilian mage from a "liberal" family, a Bane raised by that family as adopted-sister to the mage, a Gao (pirate, sorta - that was me) returning to normal society, a wizard-hunter familiar with the savages but tied to the liberal Cymrillian family . . . there were a few others who drifted in and out of this years-long campaign, but those were, I think, the key players.

A lot of play would, I suspect, have been unidentifiable in GNS terms, or sometimes Sim - we had the occassional session of "going shopping" for hours and hours (not my favorite), or poking about the big, interesting world of Talislanta as a exploration of its' own.

But things kept coming back to the issues of slavery, freedom, and the like. Many sessions - the most enjoyable to me, I suspect - could clearly be labelled Nar. A lot of the world considered the Bane to be essentially an animal, and yet she was key to helping civilization hold out against the Subman plots on many occassions. The group as a whole developed a goal of having her accepted by the Seven Kingdoms as a citizen. As we expored various bits of the mysterious past, it was always the stuff about the true ancestery of various "races" (bio-magic manipulation by the ancient Arcane) that grabbed us. Stuff that engaged us with questions about the nature of sentience, what gave folks the right to order others around - that's what got people's attention. The GM was fairly ruthless is making any attempt to change the status quo incredibly difficult, but we didn't stop trying, even when offered other directions to persue in the game.

It was a while ago, and memory is sometimes faulty. The more Sim-oriented sessions may fade a bit in my mind. But trying to think about it as rigorously as possible - overall, it seemed to me the real people playing became engaged by those issues as issues, not purely as facets of the game world. As we played, decisions would clearly be made (by players and the GM) that brought them to the fore.

Something about the aspects of the world we chose to focus on, the nature of the characters we choose to play, and the way we made decisions as the game progressed provided an opportunity to engage with those issue - and we did. In the end, it was our desire (never played out) to try and save even the Subman army itself from those who were "using" it - and we were willing to risk (RISK, not simply allow) a lot of death and destruction within the Seven Kingdoms to attempt that.

Anyway, I think the proto-Premise was about slavery and freedom in a world where "races" could be created and tinkered with via magic, and what you were willing to do to acheive "freedom" - for yourself, and for who else? That dominated play, in a way that the players involved clearly were grooving on.

Could it have been more focused? Hell yes! Would that have been good? Probably varies by taste - I could have done without some of the "shopping trip" type stuff, but that was probably important to some players - it was to at least one that I know for sure. And my Gao was a coin-collector, which I indulged in as (I'd say now) pure Exploration some times . . . but the GM would often find a way to tie that - or even the shopping trips, come to think of it - into the issues.

Hope that's the kind of thing this thread is looking for - it was that game that convinced me there really was something cool about RPGs, I wasn't just harboring nostalgic boyhood/high school memories, and that I should continue to persue this hobby. So I've thought about it a lot - feel free to probe for more details as appropriate.

Gordon

Hi folks,

A month and a half ago, I ran a one shot demo of HeroQuest. I loaded it with the Premise, "What is Justice?", although I never explicitly explained this to the players. The scenario was a classic kung fu revenge thing, but the real Premise-statements were put forth by the players in how they went about exacting revenge, and how far they were willing to go.

One tool that helped very much in making this happen was each character description ended in a question, such as, "Has her path to revenge cost her humanity along the way?" Although the players probably didn't actively think about answering the questions, in play, they did so.

Chris

Hi Chris,

I think that's great.

And it's a perfect example of something that I knew -- but never thought on the surface about before: Premise is the Priority in Narrativist Play, but how you get there is *your* business.

I'll reiterate that I think too many people focus on the "how's" of getting a Premise "shoved" into a session, instead of focusing on the much more vital question -- "What's an issue that I fucking care about?"

I suspect that the human brain is able to riff on a Premise deliverd with a light touch much more easily than most people assume. I use Gordon's post as an example: For certain sessions, it was in Nar mode. How? Someone mentioned slavery, and brought it into the concern of the PCs. For some reason we'll never know, all the players picked up on this as an interesting Premise and began riffing it.

When you're sitting around a table riffing fictional stuff, things will happen -- words spoken, ideas suggestd -- and a lot of this is going to be reflections and refractions of what's already been said. Thus, a group Premise -- worked and re-worked by the needs and interestes of the players.

Christopher

Christopher Kubasik wrote: The fact that a Premise can be personalized -- Can This Person do this, when there's this to consider," is a brilliant way to phrase a Premise. It's brilliant because it tosses the PC right into the story, into action. It sets the story underway. You could rephrase your Premise easily to be more academic: "Is personal love worth betraying one's responsibilities to the world?" But, given the background set up, why go that dry route?

A not-Premise version of this might be: strip out all the backstory and ask, "Can the character find love with an NPC?" No Premise there. You might even have great scenes, terrfic commedy, sadness, Acadamy worthy acting of scenes of sorrow and romance. But they probably won't hang together. The focus might well be on using the rules to seduce somebody, or the cultural minutae of the courtship... But without that choice -- implicit in the background -- no Premise.

I've been thinking a lot about this in regard to Burning Wheel. Chris' and John's posts solidified my thoughts.

Do I have a premise in my BW games? Do individual characters have premises.

At first glance I said, "No and Yes" respectively. But I find my actual play to be telling, and different from what I suppose.

Last year my group played in a short (8-session) campaign. All characters but one were new 5 LPers built for the setting/scenario.

Before we started, I told my players that this arc was called, "For Love and Money". Usually we title our games after the fact, but this time around I had an idea of what I wanted from play and I wanted to let them know this.

The "Money" because one of the character's goals was to gather an astronomical amount of money. He didn't start knowing this, his character was operating under separate goals of his own devising, as well as his own premise. But he fell into a situation that triggered his BITs (especially Loyal), and his goal became The Money. I knew this would happen before play began (because of the BITs in question).

The Love aspect was more interesting. The players never really moved toward my "love" scenarios. I had two important NPCs fall in love, and this was news, but it never really factored into play.

HOWEVER, the players -- operating on their own, via their character's individual premises -- devised an entire grift based on seducing a young society girl and using her to blackmail merchants. The "seducer" player fell in love with the young girl of his own volition. But I think he was predisposed to the act due to the open but defined premise I set out at the game's beginning. (Though he might retort that he was "playing his character" (aka spinning out the ramifications of his own premise, of which I was unaware.))


So my second look leads me to answer: Yes, my games begin with a premise, generally an open one. Yes, my players bring premises for their characters to the table, some of which I am unaware of and only manifest through play.

-Luke

Hi Christopher,

The major reason many people get caught on the how's and why's of Premise is because many folks want that Narrativist play, but are utilizing techniques that are contrary to their goals.

For these people, the frustrated Narrativist, they occassionally stumble upon moments of Premise-addressing play("meaningful play"), and assume that its natural to be so rare and hard to achieve. In fact, its simply a matter of using different techniques, and perhaps, on a subconscious level, they recognize that.

What's usually gumming these folks up is railroading, lack of player input & protagonism, etc. Instead of forcing Premise into play, its more about "un-forcing" Illusionist play techniques.

Once those get out of the way, Narrativism is surprisingly easy to achieve.

Chris

Hello,

I'd also like to call to everyone's attention the tendency to think, "Well, we're having a nice non-problematic game with no particular self-reflective methods, and no special effort to accord with a storyline, and all sorts of cool themes just seem to arise right out of the characters' decisions in this setting. That's too easy. We can't be playing Narrativist!"

Sorry guys. Narrativism it is, when a solid look at it shows what John just described so well.

When I say that Narrativist play requires addressing a Premise ...

1. "One or more" can be substituted for "a."

2. No one said (gnash teeth) word fucking one about actually verbalizing the stupid thing beforehand or ever, or, if having done so, forcing yourselves to adhere to it or some damn thing like that ...

(pant, pant, wheeze) ... (what? I'm fine)

3. Seeing it defined and developed through play itself, over perhaps sessions, is perfectly valid.

Best,
Ron

Matt Wilson wrote: In light of some recent threads about narrativism in an undisclosed location, I'd like some accounts of nar play and addressing of premise. How specific was your Premise before the start of play? Were you thinking, "man, I'm gonna sit me down and play me some narrativism tonight" or did it just sorta end up that you played that way?

My experience is that it's best not to try and create premise artificially. We've done that a couple of times... decided on a premise ahead of time... and it tends to feel forced and unnatural.

IMO, the best way to do it is through character and situation. Give your characters lots of relationships. Make them care about a lot of things. Give them goals that are difficult to obtain, and make the unswervingly devoted to those goals. Put them in situations where they have to act. Have their relationships and the relationships of other characters conflict. Premise will start oozing out of the cracks, just by doing what "seems cool."

Ron Edwards wrote:
No one said (gnash teeth) word fucking one about actually verbalizing the stupid thing beforehand or ever, or, if having done so, forcing yourselves to adhere to it or some damn thing like that ...

Ron Edwards wrote: No one said (gnash teeth) word fucking one about actually verbalizing the stupid thing beforehand or ever, or, if having done so, forcing yourselves to adhere to it or some damn thing like that ...

(pant, pant, wheeze) ... (what? I'm fine)

Matt Wilson wrote: I'd like some accounts of nar play and addressing of premise. How specific was your Premise before the start of play? Were you thinking, "man, I'm gonna sit me down and play me some narrativism tonight" or did it just sorta end up that you played that way?

Hi John,

No, it's not.

You may be missing my point, I'm not sure. What I am expressing with all the gnashing is this: the phrase "address Premise" does not necessitate verbalizing the Premise before, during, or after play.

No more than it has to be verbalized outright for anyone creating a story under any circumstances: extemporaneous storytelling, years-long novel-writing, comics scripting, screenwriting and directing, or anything else. In other words, not at all.

When I say "word fucking one" I am not talking about Matt's subject for this thread. I am talking about my own definition, explanations, and presentation of Narrativist play. I am supporting Matt's subject by calling attention to a highly pernicious false inference, made by many people (and possibly by you, although who can tell), which confounds any number of discussions about this mode of play.

I am helping Matt's point: to demonstrate that Premise may be introduced, developed, and resolved at many different rates and from many different starting points relative to the starting point of actual play.

Matt understands this perfectly.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: I am supporting Matt's subject by calling attention to a highly pernicious false inference, made by many people (and possibly by you, although who can tell), which confounds any number of discussions about this mode of play.

I am helping Matt's point: to demonstrate that Premise may be introduced, developed, and resolved at many different rates and from many different starting points relative to the starting point of actual play.

Hi John,

The point of the thread is whatever Matt says it is. All of your comments, as well as everyone else's, have been wonderful contributions.

However, I consider your comment ...

some compare and contrast about not having a prior-to-play Premise vs various degrees of having one.

However, I guess the point is really to collect examples about what Nar is -- in order to demonstrate a known point about Narrativism.

Sorry, Ron. You're right, my comment did border on snideness.

Ron Edwards wrote: Bluntly, this exact issue - that addressing Premise does not equal verbalizing Premise - is just where your posts keep stubbing your toe on the Narrativism issue in thread after thread. It doesn't surprise me that you're wriggling a little now that I'm holding the rock up, out of the mud, and into the light.

Ron Edwards wrote: 1. A Premise may be verbalized, or it may remain unvoiced or even unthought (in explicit abstract terms). This does not mean that it is absent, nor does it mean that it is not communicated among members of the group.

2. A Premise may be addressed (which means actually seeing people introduce, develop, and respond to a Premise-eligible issue, in terms of the imaginary characters' actions and any imagined events during play) early during the process, or late during the process of actual play. Any before-play Premise talk is either setup, brainstorming, or irrelevant.

Wow!

I accept and agree with every last syllable in your post, John. Thank you for, well, for all sorts of things.

Best,
Ron

Hey, I kinda-know both Ron and John (in that I've met 'em both, not that I know them well), and I'm happy to see an understanding communicated here - sincerely. And I appreciate the interaction of the last few posts both for their human imperfection and their keen insight.

But it seems to me we have to build a bit more on those last three paragraphs from John to both a) tie this issue back in to the purpose of the thread (premise-presence, by WHATEVER means and in whatever manner), and b) make any sense of Ron's agreement (especially since I happen to know he's not overly fond of the terms "subconscious" and "conscious" in general).

My take on it - yes, it's a huge can of worms to look at actual, demonstrated agenda as distinct from self-reported agenda as a distinguishing feature (note that this is my replacement for sub/conscious). I think Ron's take is that for the theory to get to where he wants it to, ya gotta confront this at some level. I don't think he fails to see the bucket containing hordes of wriggling Lumbricus terrestris, but he isn't afraid of 'em either. And thus, neither he, GNS, nor we should be afraid of the fact that John's added #3 is, of course, true. Nor should we be troubled that all the variations on what's demonstrated vs. what's reported are valid possibilities (John's "all sorts of differences"). That we can't take what someone says at face value does not mean it has NO value - and in practice (esp. in forum posting), we often might as well take it at face value, because it's the best we're going to get.

Or put another way: a self-report is A demonstration. It is not, in itself, THE conclusive demonstration.

So when we talk about instances where premise seemed to be the priority of play, it's always a supposition. The opinion that "it just sorta end up that you played that way" is really all you need to hold up an example of premise. Rigorous examination might turn out to question that conclusion - but that's OK. I can easily imagine someone challenging my Talislanta example.

But for purposes of this thread, anyplace someone can see premise getting prioritized seems reasonable for posting. Whether they are rigorously "correct" or not may not be so important - because even though they might not have been prioritizing premise, someone else who was in an analogous situation might.

Hope that THIS post is actually a contribution to the thread,

Gordon

Hello,

Works for me, Gordon. Let's see if I can merely provide the necessary groundwork for anyone who might need some help understanding where I'm coming from about that issue

I think that my comments in Creative Agenda only retroactive?, GNS/Creative Agenda essay (long), and What's the bugaboo about out-of-character context? are all I need to say, or will ever say about this whole "intent," "motive," and "consciousness" issue.

I shall quote the most important summation from the last thread listed. If you want to debate it, let's do it elsewhere. But I'm posting it here to forestall false paraphrases of my position.

Excuse me, but "intent" is accounted for in the model.

You are free to insert the term wherever and however you see fit in order to clarify to yourself what's going on. As long as you don't replace or dismiss any of the other terms, it's no big deal.

I say this over and over. Few people seem to read anything except "Ron says there's no 'intent' involved," and go "aaacckk!"

I've only read a few of these posts, and I'm not sure I get the whole picture. But I like the thoughts bouncing around in my neurons. It's kind of like being at a really good panel at an sf con.

I never actually sat down and planned THEMES. I never got people who did. Even when I ready Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads, a really good gming aid, published for RTG's Cyberpunk, but good for all GMs, just the idea that I would sit down and Plan a Theme was alien. Still is.

But themes do happen. In my game, there's a bit of a "the children grow up" theme. I don't hammer on it, and to the degree the theme works, that's why it works.

I don't come up with Premises. But if I do, they are indeed more likely to be of the "Can PC X find love with NPC Y?" than "What profit in betrayal?" Keeping it intimate and personal seems to work best because it is rooted in the PCs and the players. The themes, or premises, grow out of what is happening with the people around the table, what all of them want -- not what the GM has decided will be the Moral Lesson of the Day, or of the campaign.

And keeping it personal makes the big scale work better, even if you're not planning the big scale. As above, so below. Hail Hermes Trismegistus.

Lisa:

I'll start with the usual disclaimers: without knowing how your groups work, I can't say whether your playing N or S or what, so all this is a bit presumptive on my part.

Firstly, presence of a theme doesn't necessarily make play N. S play can hapily sit exploring theme for years (IME most WW games play this way, very rewardingly). And sure, most game worlds have a theme or two lurking inherently in them, and most play can be said to have a theme, whether it's planned or emergent from play . Sometimes you have to hold it up to the light and tilt your head to see it, and most of those times it's hardly worth the effort when you do (Theme: Orcs bad, gold good). But it's there, for the interested student.

You say you don't come up with "premisey" premises, just questions about personal issues... well, I'm working my way round the definition of a premise that sums up what it is in practical terms. At the moment, my best effort is: "A premise is the statement of a problem that can only be adequately framed in general terms, but only adequately addressed in specific terms." Frex, it could be as simple as "Can PC X find love with NPC Y" being the local case of "Can someone like PC X find love with someone like NPC Y", or even "Can someone like PC X find love?", or, to take it to extereme, "Can love be found?"

Or, it might not be. Depends how it's played.

But your last point, that it's what matters to the players, not what the GM has decided will be "moral lesson of the day..." That's absolutely, solid gold at the heart of N play. The premise has to be personalised in the characters, and immediately "grabby" to the players. If the players end up being led through the GM's daytime movie of the week, it's not N, it's sim exploration of theme done in a manner that's very hard to pull off entertaingly.

Sure, you don't sit down to play theme of the day. But you sit down with characters you care about as characters, with issues you care about, in situations that highlight their personal issues.

Sounds like N to me...

BTW, read Ron's N essay. It;s a lot better than that twaddle above...

EDIT: Reading back through that, and your original post, I think I entirely missed your point. Are you saying "I don't build from premise first, but it feels like N to me?" If so, as the rest of the thread says, it's probably N with implied premise. I'll go back to work now...

pete_darby wrote:
But your last point, that it's what matters to the players, not what the GM has decided will be "moral lesson of the day..." That's absolutely, solid gold at the heart of N play. The premise has to be personalised in the characters, and immediately "grabby" to the players. If the players end up being led through the GM's daytime movie of the week, it's not N, it's sim exploration of theme done in a manner that's very hard to pull off entertaingly.

pete_darby wrote:
BTW, read Ron's N essay. It;s a lot better than that twaddle above...

My recent Burning Wheel campaign spontaneously generated Premise, at least to me as GM, after character creation. One thing BW can do is allow players to create characters that don't follow the traditional fighter/thief/magic-user archetypes of fantasy role-play. When I generated a character for my wife, Krista, I made a blacksmith. No adventuring credentials, just a village blacksmith. The rest of the party followed more traditional lines: a knight, a scout, a sorcerer. This blacksmith character had no incentive to go out hunting treasure and fame, and this had a major influence on the structure of the game. In the end, this proposed a Premise to me that only became explicit (in my mind) after play began. The theme of the game became "To whom do you owe your allegiance?"

Because the villagers have an inherent conflict with the tax-collector, and the knight serves the feudal lord (lady, in this case) of the lands who is the ultimate recipient of these taxes, and the villagers have close ties to local bandits (Robin Hood style), conflict simply presents itself in the entire makeup of the group. All of these conflicting desires and allegiances have created some very rich play, and very morally complex storylines.

In this case, Premise grew organically in my mind based on the characters and setting that were established.

inthisstyle wrote: When I generated a character for my wife, Krista, I made a blacksmith. No adventuring credentials, just a village blacksmith. The rest of the party followed more traditional lines: a knight, a scout, a sorcerer. This blacksmith character had no incentive to go out hunting treasure and fame, and this had a major influence on the structure of the game. In the end, this proposed a Premise to me that only became explicit (in my mind) after play began. The theme of the game became "To whom do you owe your allegiance?" Because the villagers have an inherent conflict with the tax-collector, and the knight serves the feudal lord (lady, in this case) of the lands who is the ultimate recipient of these taxes, and the villagers have close ties to local bandits (Robin Hood style), conflict simply presents itself in the entire makeup of the group.

Hi John,

For the record, all of those descriptions of play, to me, sounded and still sound fully compatible with Narrativist play as I've defined it.

The blacksmith character and Idelle represent character-based Narrativist play, in my model, with no if's or qualifications necessary. Such play is not at all consistent with Simulationism in my model, although I understand how it's consistent with Threefold Simulationism.

Is it possible that you have been thinking of Narrativism as being story-directed (more like Threefold Dramatism; I'm thinking of Theatrix) rather than being merely especially good at story-creating? If I'm reading you right, you would rip an Illusionist GM (or better, a Typhoid Mary) to shreds in play. Just for my peace of mind, can you see that what you're saying exhibits absolutely no point of dissention from Narrativism in my essay?

As a related side note, it seems to me that, as a GM, you play bass just as I've described it (counter to your reactions to that piece) ... relying mainly on Pink Floyd like sustained notes, long and humming, a platform from which all the "speaking" instruments operate but without prodding them beat by beat. And like all bass-playing GMing, absolutely not dictating what they do.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: The blacksmith character and Idelle represent character-based Narrativist play, in my model, with no if's or qualifications necessary. Such play is not at all consistent with Simulationism in my model, although I understand how it's consistent with Threefold Simulationism.

Is it possible that you have been thinking of Narrativism as being story-directed (more like Threefold Dramatism; I'm thinking of Theatrix) rather than being merely especially good at story-creating?

Hello,

Narrativism places emphasis on the GM presenting and driving Bangs, for example