This is split off from: Towards Mythic Storytelling and Mythic Role-play.

The topic is:
-- restricting player choice as a way of supporting an aesthetic
-- formal, required structural elements that shape the narrative
-- reoccuring symbols, which eventually generate a "symbolic language"
-- pre-play scene/game structuring, creating a more extensive framework than that provided by Universalis-style setup

As a way of getting us started, here're some excerpts from the last thread:

Shreyas Sampat wrote: How can we accomplish mythological story structure? How important is it? (It seems that we keep coming around to the topic of enforcing story structure in roleplaying.)

Chris Lehrich wrote: One way is to have, either pre-determined or constructed over the course of a campaign, a number of general story-types or -themes. By means of some mechanic or other, such as writing these on cards and playing them, you have players opt to impose a structure temporarily or permanently on a story.

I wrote: If you're trying to do some kind of mythic simulation, it seems to me that less player choice might actually be a reasonable place to go. Some players will scream and gnash their teeth, but I don't seen anything that strange about creating a game where players take on predetermined characters that are required to do certain things. That happens in the theater all the time. Even in improv, performers often have set characters who they know are going to do x, y, and z, but then improvize the rest.

Harlequin wrote: Some use of predestination is probably not only a good element, but also a good tool for achieving some structure. <snip> By the peculiar logic of the game, if true, her words entail a form of predestination... because by knowing that he will someday betray his friends, he knows that this cannot be bucked, and has to just start mentally preparing himself for that day.

Harlequin wrote: Play proceeds in two phases.

Play in phase B will look pretty normal, with a GM and several players, playing protagonists in the narrative.

Play in phase A, however, is taken to be the "framing device" as used in those stories.

Jonathan Walton wrote:

The topic is:
-- restricting player choice as a way of supporting an aesthetic
-- formal, required structural elements that shape the narrative
-- reoccuring symbols, which eventually generate a "symbolic language"
-- pre-play scene/game structuring, creating a more extensive framework than that provided by Universalis-style setup

Harlequin wrote: Play proceeds in two phases.

Play in phase B will look pretty normal, with a GM and several players, playing protagonists in the narrative.

Play in phase A, however, is taken to be the "framing device" as used in those stories.

Hey Neel,

It's great to see you on the Forge. Feels like I've been stealing your ideas forever (In Nomine list, Nobilist), since you have such a great aesthetic sense.

Do you have AA written up anywhere, for people to read? It sounds like a neat use of through-framing.

Also, I was realizing today that My Life with Master uses much more aggressive scene framing than Universalis, in many ways, since the mechanics themselves can actually call for scenes, rather than the players themselves (Captured/The Horror Revealed/Endgame/Epilogue). To me, this seems to support the idea that aggressive framing is often an effective Simulationist technique for emulating a certain aesthetic (which MLwM does out the wazoo), though I suppose you could use through framing to make sure the premise was addressed in certain ways, though I can't really think of a game that does this.

Jonathan Walton wrote: Also, I was realizing today that My Life with Master uses much more aggressive scene framing than Universalis, in many ways, since the mechanics themselves can actually call for scenes, rather than the players themselves (Captured/The Horror Revealed/Endgame/Epilogue).

Jonathan Walton wrote: If I can coin a new term, I think this concept of "through-framing" is a really interesting one. You frame the set up, the outcome, and perhaps a few key points in between ("And, sometime during their argument, Viola should smash George's prized collection of antique clocks!").

A little game called Cradlethorn, that I've so far left to turn to mulch, uses a much more loose form of this technique. The draft is confusing and problem ridden but might be worth taking a look at to see the scene framing structure.

-Chris

Jonathan Walton wrote: Hey Neel,

It's great to see you on the Forge. Feels like I've been stealing your ideas forever (In Nomine list, Nobilist), since you have such a great aesthetic sense.

Do you have AA written up anywhere, for people to read? It sounds like a neat use of through-framing.

neelk wrote: Ideas not getting used because something better is invented doesn't weary people -- the energy is sucked out of a group when people are inventing cool things that go unused because there's no context to fit them into.

gobi wrote: Call me crazy, but this problem sounds like it could be solved through a simple technique used in improv comedy.

Just something else I wanted to bring up, while we're on this topic. I was reading through when it hit me that "bounded" roleplaying and through-framing doesn't have to only be limited to just the story structure. For instance, browse through Vincent & Emily's threads that basically describe through-framing the game system while play is going on:

Adventures in Improvized System
More Adventures in Improvized System: Techniques
Further More Adventures in Improvized System
Adventures in Shared Character Vision

This shows that, with a strong social contract to prevent abuse and descent into freeform chaos, you could use a few system boundaries to demarkate what the game system would be like and then improvise the rest during play. I mean, often times, GMs are responsible for that kind of thing anyway ("So how do we determine falling damage?"), but, when writing for fairly experienced roleplayers, you could build this kind of thing into the game system. Imagine something that was kinda like "Fudge as you go," where you pick a fairly adaptable toolbox (Fudge, in this example) and just improvise any rules you need.

Or, if you don't like Vincent and Emily's pave the road as you go approach, you could even through-frame the system for each scene, improvizing mechanics before play starts to handle whatever major events will happen in a scene.

Jonathan Walton wrote:
This shows that, with a strong social contract to prevent abuse and descent into freeform chaos, you could use a few system boundaries to demarcate what the game system would be like and then improvise the rest during play

neelk wrote: A digression: have you actually ever seen this descent-into-chaos happen in practice?

I've had similar experiences to what both of you are saying.

I think, if you have a strong social contract, freeform works REALLY well, much better, often, than traditional high-structure roleplaying, especially with people who aren't traditional roleplayers. Total freeform can be troublesome in spots, unless you have some means of allocating narrative control. Then again, if you have a strong enough social contract, usually you can decide who's version of events happens in a fairly quick and easy manner. Near-freeform systems like Once Upon a Time or the Arkana System for Engel, help make this happen even faster. I've participated in lots of freeform PBeMs that had a strong set of unspoken guidelines of polite social behavior, and they worked beautifully.

However, as with M. J.'s example, social contract only works if you can successful socialize all the people who want to play, getting them to follow along with the "rules of engagement." It doesn't let you deal easily with people who don't "get it," especially in an anonymous online environment.

So, to answer your question Neel, I don't think freeform is this chaotic pit of doom that many roleplayers claim. Heck, they say that about diceless play too, and thanks to Amber, Nobilis, and others, that's pretty much been shown to be total crap. I think what people mean when they say things like that is: "The way I usually play wouldn't work in diceless/freeform; it would just cause things to descend into chaos."

Interesting how we've begun discussing high-narrative control and low-system control in the same thread. I think they might be related. If you through-frame most of the scenes and mechanics you need for each encounter, you don't really need as much built-in system to keep things in line. The narrative restrictions will keep things from becoming insane, so you don't really need "fair and balanced" mechanics to govern the game world.

Jonathan Walton wrote: Interesting how we've begun discussing high-narrative control and low-system control in the same thread. I think they might be related. If you through-frame most of the scenes and mechanics you need for each encounter, you don't really need as much built-in system to keep things in line. The narrative restrictions will keep things from becoming insane, so you don't really need "fair and balanced" mechanics to govern the game world.

I'm a tad fuzzy on this. How aren't all the normal rules of normal RPG play not about constraining the narrative?

It's always been my supposition that the only reason to have mechanics in RPG play is that it improved the narrative in some way. That is, it might not be "mythic" or whatever, but it has some quality when done that makes it better than what tends to be formed by freeform play.

Else we'd all be playing freeform. Or is the contention that we should?

Structure in RPGs is not because we're all immature and incapable of maintaining proper Social Contract. No more so than a canvas is used for painting because otherwise we'd mess up the walls. These things are supports for the activity in constructive ways.

Mike

Hello,

I'm with Mike.

1. I think the whole idea that "RPG rules exist to resove disagreements which crop up in Cops & Robbers style play" is monstrously stupid and mistaken. I know you weren't proposing that, Jonathan - but it's a necessary point to set up what I mean by my next one.

2. I also think that the concept of "bounds" and "constraints" is fundamental to any creative activity, and so I'm not at all sure how bounded-ness can be discussed as an on-off type of issue. A discussion of degrees, and about what, would make more sense to me.

Best,
Ron

Mike Holmes wrote: It's always been my supposition that the only reason to have mechanics in RPG play is that it improved the narrative in some way.

I have to echo Ron's comment. The question of contraint is not really what's at issue here. It's the form of that constraint.

[Speaking of foreknowledge, however... warning, this post is long.]

This thread got split off because of thinking about predestination, character knowledge of fate, and player knowledge of events ahead. Those are very powerful constraints, and might perhaps be strongly separable from one another.

For example, I've both played and GMed some very poweful Participationist games. [Jargon. Participationist: Illusionist play with full player buy-in. AKA Trailblazing, I believe. Semantic discussions to another thread, please.] I would hazard - thinking about this topic - that some of the effectiveness of those games stemmed not from our classic view of Participationist style, wherein it's the depth and intricacy of the GM's prepared events and the way in which he has pre-woven the PCs into this structure, but in true Participationism another part of the fun comes from knowing the story to be highly constrained. You are, as it were, freed from the necessity to drive the story.

It may provoke reactive play, perhaps... but (as I'm finding in my 7thSea/TROS hybrid) some forms of source literature (swashbuckling in this example) seem to work better with reactive characters than proactive ones, at many junctures. And certainly "reactive play" may not deserve the stigma we jaded gamers are inclined to give it; it's fun, we do it, it's roleplaying, full stop.

So in that case, I'd say that player knowledge of the constraint is sufficient - even if they do not, unlike in Aquinan Angels, know the actual shape of the constraint.

I'd call that one branch of the tree; players know their story is constrained but are not participants in the constraining. The next branch over gets us the Aquinan Angels model, where players know their story is constrained and participate in shaping that constraint. I'd say that this move, with its greater degree of analysis, is likely to please jaded/analytical gamers more and gut/experiential gamers less. Useful distinction, that; know thy playerbase.

On another limb we have cases of character-knowledge as constraint. Again I suspect we could do the same existence/form split, that is, in one case the characters themselves are aware of being constrained but not how (I might point to particularly playful games of Clue/Cluedo here, as a thought, and also to well-run conspiracy games where the PCs are aware they're being used but not to what end, like the classic module 'Harlequin' for Shadowrun), while on the other branch the characters are also aware of the details of the constraint to some degree (the Continuum example belongs here). In the latter they therefore have a stronger direct interaction with that fate, I think, while in the former we get suspicion and frequently some form of paranoia.

As always the question is which technique might best suit a given objective. From the above list, I'd say that player knowledge that some of the future has been constrained, but not how, produces an attentiveness as they watch for those borders. This is the Participationist edge. Player knowledge of the constraints proper moves that awareness to a lower level, and moves the edge of attentiveness to watching for the playing-out of the known elements, and planning around their existence. Filling in the interstices, if you will.

Character knowledge of the existence of constraint again focuses character attention on finding out the shape of it, which is good if you want this to be a major character activity in your game, but does promote a feeling of helplessness in the characters unless they're making progress toward this discovery. Interestingly, I'd note that in the situations where characters are making progress toward discovering their predestined/planned events, sometimes paranoia results, and sometimes the act of discovery and working out of those fates produces more of a feel of wonder (at least in the players). Character knowledge of some details of the constraint, on the other hand, again results in them fitting their actions within the matrix of the knowns - gives them things to pin decisions to, which is often good if they still have enough flex to act otherwise. Part of the strength of Continuum's form of predestination is that, freed from linear timekeeping, the characters have great discretion in when they choose to play out a fate; this flexibility is, I suspect, very important.

Long post, sorry, there's a lot of meat on this bone. I'd like to close out with a description of a relevant mechanic from my own game, if I may, to point to where it fits in this scheme and what it's intended to accomplish.

Fates are cards with matter-of-fact events of the future on them. The GM prepares these and, upon describing an omen in the narration, passes the card face-down to the intended player, with some number of Purpose dice (a not-otherwise-replenishable Resource). The more severe the Fate, the more dice he is required to place; the guideline for doing so is one of the three fundamental guidelines in the game.

The omen, or alternately the image on the face-up side of the card in some cases, is the player's only hint. The player may decline; player control over his character is intended to be absolute, and a strong author stance is encouraged here. Or the player may accept the Fate, receiving the reward in dice and facing the player-foreknowledge that event X will happen to the character at some point. If, having read it, he desires to have his character rail against fate and struggle to escape this destiny, he may; the required rolls to fight it will probably expend about as many or slightly more resources than what he received, though of a different form (Will or Conviction dice).

This is intended to serve several purposes related to the issues of foreknowledge and constraint.

- First, it's actually the only means by which the GM is permitted to harm or alter the PC, meaning that it flips the state from the player being less-constrained than in most games, to more constrained via this foreknowledge.
- Discretionary acceptance of this means (hopefully) that player preference gets to control the amount of contraint, in the long run, under which he plays; discretion to "fight fate" also gives the player a choice in one of two ways to tell out the pathway there, with or without struggle against fate. This isn't as much freedom to "rotate around the pins" as Continuum gives, but giving some freedom on how the predestination plays out is still the same basic technique. (I'm considering having this process affect when the Fate kicks in, as well, but in a softer rule.)
- Lastly, the Fate structure mixes "knowledge of existence" for the other players with "knowledge of details" for the Fated player, mixing those two types at the table, and giving the other players hints only in the inclusion of the omen or the image (typically that image would be an NPC in the game - antagonist, dependant, etc - or a location). That's a conscious attempt to hit both types of enjoyment, knowledge-of-existence and knowledge-of-details of the constraint in the same game.

I hadn't done that analysis before, but those are the building blocks I'd pick out... interesting to do the same analysis on something else, like the Aquinan Angels game, and see where the common threads lie.

- Eric

There's a lot of good stuff here, but if I tried to react to it all I'd never finish my response. So I'm picking out one or two things and responding to them -- if you feel that I overlooked the important part, please point it out!

Harlequin wrote:
I'd call that one branch of the tree; players know their story is constrained but are not participants in the constraining. The next branch over gets us the Aquinan Angels model, where players know their story is constrained and participate in shaping that constraint. I'd say that this move, with its greater degree of analysis, is likely to please jaded/analytical gamers more and gut/experiential gamers less. Useful distinction, that; know thy playerbase.

As always the question is which technique might best suit a given objective. From the above list, I'd say that player knowledge that some of the future has been constrained, but not how, produces an attentiveness as they watch for those borders.

Three responses apropos this thread:

1) Isn't a lot of this similar to the old West End Games' *Star Wars RPG*, in which
scenarios would start with the players reading scripts which declared for the players
each PC's motivation and impetus for embarking upon the pre-planned scenario?

I seem to recall a number of players hating this because it took control of the roleplayed
personality out of the hands of the player.

2) This reminds me a bit of the notion of Player Archetypes (or whatever a game system
chose to label them) which included PC motivations. For example, in White Wolf's *Bastet*,
each tribe includes secrets for which the PC should be searching.

How is what you are discussing different from Pre-constructed Archetypes which include
PC motivation in them?

I recall a fantasy game I ran in which each player chose his/her narrative niche for
the game: Reluctant Hero, Confused Wizard, Lost Immortal, etc. It worked well for
the game because all the players knew their own niches and the niches of the others,
and it allowed a certain freeform aspect to the game because players were able to
self-constrain their improvisation to fit within their character niches and thereby
within the narrative structure of the campaign.

3) I ~have~ witnessed on numerous occasions players going out of control in freeform
games without rules to constrain them -- and even in games heavy with rules, usually
using protracted and socially violent arguments to sidestep rules they consider "unrealistic"
or inconvenient -- the sort of player known in common gaming parlance as a
"power gamer" or "munchkin" or "twink". However, players with that particular approach
to gaming usually bore of freeform games very quickly (it's no fun to power game if it's
easy to power game), and game masters interested in running freeform games or games
with a low argument ratio quickly learn better than to bring such people into freeform games.

I've also known game masters who absolutely love such players, because they will test
the limits of any system they play in, and they work well with playing groups that enjoy
rules loopholing and energetic rules arguments.

Doctor Xero