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Hi everyone,

It's so much easier than everyone makes it.

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

With me? Good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best,
Ron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To play a game where characters are pre-doomed, players and GM may agree on this in advance, or it may be used as an explaination after the fact.

The question relevant to this discussion is not "Do character's have free will?" it's "Who decides if the character has free will - the player of the GM?"

I think this applies to all your examples.

"Who decides how the character's social environment shapes his actions?"

"Who decides how the character's passion shapes his actions?"

Quote from: Bruce Baughmoments of particular crisis where a single person makes a decision. But that's just part of the story

We're talking about the definition of the Impossible Thing: the Impossible Thing exists in the context of the definition of decisions being made and whose they are to make. Your argument here appears to be an attempt to invalidate the Impossible Thing by taking it out of the context it is judging.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with the defintion of "story" above, for The Impossible Thing, that is the definition it is referring to. Call it "decision-oriented story" if you must, just keep in mind that the Impossible Thing isn't attempting to deal with the other parts of the story, just the moments of decision in the specific context of making decisions as written in many traditional RPGs.

Hence responses utilizing the method by which certain groups play as counterpoints to the possibility of the Impossible Thing are invalid because they are not referring to a game which espouses it. It is apples and oranges, that is, responding to the statement: "An apple is sweet" by arguing that "An orange is tangy!"

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

Preordination has nothing to do with the point made above by Ron. It's very simple: if decisions are made, and the game says that all decisions are in the hands of the GM, but also says decisions are in the hands of the players, then you have the Impossible Thing.

Either the players get to be in charge of what happens to their characters, and what their characters choose to do, or they don't, and the game text says both. The Impossible Thing is a situation where the rules say they do get to be in charge, but also says the GM is in charge of the events of the story. It is as simple as that.

Sounds stupid? Something you wouldn't ever say?
Yes...then why do so many game books say it?

Hi there,

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

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

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

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

Narrative:

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

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

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

Best,
Ron

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

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

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

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

Again, the Impossible Thing deals with moments of decision, inside this context or outside it. That's all there is to it. Talking about Color, imagery, ambiance and so forth have nothing to do with the Impossible Thing.

If the game text clearly states that "This must happen to all characters in this game" then there clearly isn't an Impossible Thing going on when that happens because it is clearly part of the explicit game.

The problem arises when the game text says "You can do anything" but then also says "This must happen" (note not "You can do anything except it must lead to this." Very important distinction).

If you haven't, go read Sorcerer, because the "what kind of story is this and what's important in it?" is the kind of game Sorcerer is: created by group definition, through the definition of Humanity, sorcery, and demons.

What you're talking about above is called a Social Contract: the idea that the group will remain true to a specific set of ideas during the play of the game. These ideas can be "events" as you state: a romantic comedy and hence love and marriage despite adversity, no matter what.

This, again, appears to be an attempt to decry the Impossible Thing by taking it outside the context given above. But the Impossible Thing only happens when the game text clearly states "The players are in charge of their decisions, except these foreordained items" and then also states "The GM is in charge of everything about the story, except the foreordained items."

These two items are mutually exclusive.

But most games say, "Do whatever you want, and Story will happen." There's the Impossible Thing: assuming that everyone will remain true to the ideas and ambiance, and forcing them if they don't, all because the text tells the players "You can do what you want" but then also says "You can't do what you want" and gives no firm guidance for where to draw the boundaries of play at.

So, taken in a different light, the Impossible Thing can thus also exist if you, as GM, get to say the "hows" of the failure and the "whats" of the matter, but the players also get to say the "hows" of the failure and the "whats" of the matter.

If a player chooses not to play in-line with the ideas of the game as envisioned by you, who gets to make the choice if their results are as intended? You? Or them? Game texts that espouse the Impossible Thing say both.

Now please, reread that: game texts that espouse the Impossible Thing. Also see MJ's recent example in the other thread about the Illusionist GM and the battle where he was forced to use the ace-in-the-hole by the GM, and note the very important closing statements about what he took away from the game text as compared to what his GM took away from the game text.

That's the Impossible Thing. Honestly, it's so simple, I can't believe this much text is being devoted to it. When it is written "The player is in charge of X" and it is also written "The GM is in charge of X", and X is the same thing in both cases, you have the Impossible thing.

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

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

Hi Bruce,

I get you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best,
Ron

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

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

Damn! Both, actually.

Best,
Ron

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

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

_____________________

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

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

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

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

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

_____________________

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

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

Hi John,

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

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

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

Best,
Ron

QuoteMy question is simple: Is it really impossible?

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

I dare venture my opinion.  After careful thought, It is impossible.  

Consider a character standing outside a door.  

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

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

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

This single instance in the game is a matter of the ITBB.  If B happens but relies on the GM to find out the next part of the story (C), then the GM is still in control, regardless of the decision the player made.  The GM can ultimately direct the character to the parallel of A through B and C.  The parallel of A being the same destination only a different description of the GM devising.

If however through C the Player dictates a new set of goals for the character that does not include A or a parallel of A then the Player is in control and still you do not have a dual control.  

In both cases you have an Director and a subordinate.  If the Players rely on their GM to include any part of the story which they persue, the GM is still providing direction, and if the players are in pure actor stance, offering no direction the GM is still the driving force.

Even if the GM modifies his A to be the result of B (even if A never included B), the GM still is supplying the means and ultimately the ends.
I'm not sure about anyone else, but if my game ever went :

GM: "A trap door opens beneath you, roll a dice for dexterity."
Player: "No it doesn't, I open the door and see...?"
GM: "umm... ok, A room full of Iron Golems dressed as imperial guards."
Player:" heh, um, actually I kill the kobold and take it's magical sword of GM defiance."

: I'd wonder what I was doing there at all.  Both the GM and the Player cannot dictate an event to two different outcomes.  There must be a lean one way or the other.  Either the GM takes requests and ponders life which sayign what he's supposed to, or the GM controls events to an end or in response to player action.

Hope I have confused the issue for anyone.  This is my perception of the Impossible Thing.

JOE--