The Forge Archives

In another thread, the sentence "I'd love to see an expansion of "address." " came up as in what does it mean to address a premise.

So, what does it mean to address a premise?

Hello,

The short answer is, "See the Narrativism essay."

Answer + query: "It's not written yet! When will it appear?"

Me: "Maybe January 1. Or so."

Best I can do for you now is to say, "address" concerns specificl and actual play, not "results of play" or "retroactively apparent" or "somehow embedded in the prep for play" or anything else. It's the "Now" part of Story Now. Combine that with Premise and see where you get, I suppose ...

And I guess that means I have to clarify that by "play," I do not, for one moment, mean "what the characters did." I mean what the people do when they play, which happens to include, but is not limited to, creating what the characters do.

Best,
Ron

While I don't expect a response here, I do want to say that the disclaimers about results of play and the like don't make anything clearer to me.

This is gonna be a whopper of a post--please read it carefully--with any luck it'll explain a lot of my questions (which boil down to: I'm unable to analyze play from a GNS perspective save in what I think are extreme edge cases and then, only in *instants*--over a given period of time, I find I can hang whatever mode I choose to on anyone's play and make an equally strong case for it).

Here are some specific questions I have (perhaps this can be used to help illuminate the final essay):

1. Since the "address of Premise" need not be conscious in the minds of the participants, the act of addressing is only relevant to an observer. So my questions are:

 a. If the game takes place on IRC, can there be such a thing as address of Premise or can any determination be made as to Creative Agenda (assuming the shared game-space only exists in the in-game channel)? Or does "address" only happen in person-to-person interaction? Given that *only* in game actions are available to any observer. Is pure IRC play GNS-modeless (since while there's assumed to be a Creative Agenda, a given, named mode is an observational statement).

 b. When the action of game-play resembles a story there will always be theme and address of action/situation. How does one tell the difference between someone really interested in Exploration of a dramatic situation vs. address of premise since, essentially, both will always be happening. In other words, I see no instant of supposed Narrativist play that does not equal exploration of situation. I see no way to tell one from the other, save for empowerment.

2. Is player-empowerment important and implied in "address" (i.e. you will say the player must be empowered in order to address the premise)? If that's the case then:

 a. What's the cut-off point? There's a spectrum from the-GM-watches-while-the-player-tells-his-whole-story to the-game's-on-rails-so-strong-only-the-GM-ever-speaks. If empowerment *is* an issue then presumably there's a cut-off somewhere along that spectrum. I've never seen that expressed in any way that's useful to me as someone trying to determine if play is empowered. Where does the definition draw the line?

 b. Someone recently asked "how do the players overrule the GM?" in a Narrativist play discussion. Is that an important question? Should that be asked/answered for a discussion of Narrativist play?

3. Since it seems that the Narrativist description of play only says "the play was observed to [address premise]" what is the purported value of that analysis? Is the implicit assumption made that if the play didn't end in a fire-storm argument that the audience enjoyed narrativist play? Is the assumption made that the players are Narrativists?

What is the value? Especially since:

 a. MJ notes that it's quite possible for a person to evidence a given type of play--but if it isn't their preferred form, they may do all kinds of things that, say, appear Gamist--but the observer must somehow correctly suss out that these are not "what really matters to them." (this seems to be the kind of intent-reading that the theory really tries to stay away from).

 b. Someone (Vincent I think) notes that in many situations people may play in a vigorous, lively matter that is not their preferred one.

4. If I play a game and I know I am agonizing over moral choices and otherwise acting in a way that addresses a thematic question but the play for some reason "doesn't appear Narrativist to the observer" then what's going on? Is it correct to say that the play (let's assume it's a 1-GM-with-1-player game) is judged to be Gamist is it:

 a. More likely that the observer is in error if I, as a player, can point to a string of actions that everyone agrees *did* address the premise but which I seemed a bit reserved about?
 b.  More likely that I am playing Step-on-Up since I didn't *exhibit* the necessary threshold of excitement/engagement when making moral choices but seemed tense ('excited') when overcoming challenges?
 c. Clear that I am playing Gamist because that's what the observer saw and the label only applies to observed phenomena?

5. People associated V:tM's talk of Story with the promise of Narrativist play. The slogan for Narrativist play is Story Now. Considering that Story is, at best, a misleading term, why do this? Is it that:

 a. Narrativist play is suppsed to present a "better" story for the participants (however they judge that?)
 b. That the Story Now slogan means that the play offers some immediate delivery of narrative that doesn't exist in, say, Sim exloration of Situation? If so, is this delivery observable or assumed to be implicit in the minds of the players (i.e. because they are playing Narrativist they are appreciating the events as-a-story in some way rather than, say, as-an-RPG? or maybe the Narrativist player see the Sim player as precieving the game as-a-series-of-events (rather than a story?) If so, how can anyone know any of this is happening from an observation?
 c. In Narrativist play every piece of the game is meant to be a story meaning there will be no NOW scenes that are non-story?
 d. Something else (I assume?)

6. Several listed examples of Narrativist play deal with player empowerment (Raven's movement-rules-make-my-character-suck example) rather than with theme or premise. How far does address Premise go in:

 a. Ensuring that PC's are treated as "cool" or "allowed to do their cool moves."
 b. Ensuring that PC's don't suffer un-expected, unwanted, anti-climactic, defeat?

This is a hell of an essay right there. I'd be a fool to expect you to answer it (I'm not payin' after all)--but hopefully it explains that the credo of Story Now doesn't explain/mean much to me--or rather, it always seems to mean something else when ever I get close to questioning anyone on it.

-Marco

Hello,

Now everyone knows what my Inbox looks like. Marco, thanks for putting all that out in the open; we've been batting it around for ages.

From my end, these questions resemble the blind men and the elephant ... with the provisos that the men are only closing their eyes, and the elephant is not mysterious, or symbolic of some ineffable "wholeness," but rather a fairly ordinary elephant. The different "answers" you get are in my view an artifact of asking a number of different and, to my eyes, equally wonky questions throughout your time at the Forge.

I know you may disagree on this point: I don't think your level/type of inquiry about Narrativism is a widespread or consistent issue. Yes, it takes a little learning, for self-identified role-players (not for new players). Most of the role-players get there quite quickly.

I am now convinced that I, personally, will never be able to answer your questions the way you want them answered. My essay will say what it will say, and be as clear or opaque as it is for any particular reader - in other words, this is a disclaimer that says, "The Narrativism essay will not open the heavens to release shower of understanding."

I'll do my best, Marco, but the reality is, if it comes down to explaining it quite well to the vast majority of readers and inadequately for you, I'm probably going to have to stop there.

My hope is that the new presentation of the big model will make this unfortunate hypothetical outcome unlikely.

Best,
Ron

Quote from: Ron EdwardsHello,

I'll do my best, Marco, but the reality is, if it comes down to explaining it quite well to the vast majority of readers and inadequately for you, I'm probably going to have to stop there.

Best,
Ron

I fully recognize that's your right--but consider this: I'm telling you when I look closely I see inconsistencies in what you're saying--and you're telling me I'm not just blind--I'm (willfully?) closing my eyes.

Whoever coined Story Now as a Narrativist credo certainly knew that Story was a weak term--but it got done anway. Why?

The use of the word Agenda (Creative Agenda) for what gets defended over and over as a purely observational phenomena is at least a bit misleading.

The focus on play-at-the-table gets very questionable over, say IRC. Will the theory date-itself as the world moves to a more online position? I wouldn't think a riggorous one would--but the rejection of in-game context for analysis of creative agenda is, I think, somewhat telling.

For someone who (and not incorrectly) takes games to task for saying things like "The GM is the author and the players are characters of a story" I would think that you'd a) at least consider that what is seen as sufficient for the vast majority of the people to whom you wish to communicate is very possibly quite inadequate (and maybe even damaging) to communication with a broad audience on a number of levels.

I realize I posted an entire essay. As I said, I'm not paying for the answers so your best-effort is certainly all I could expect. But my inbox suggests I'm not the only person with these questions. I'm just one of the relatively few here who keeps asking them.

Edited to note: I don't expect/demand a response from Ron--but I'd sure like to see other people's answers to Jack's (or my) question(s). I'm not sure if he doesn't see the elephant either or if it was just asked for my sake. After all, Jan 1st is a month or so away.

-Marco

Hi there,

The inadequacy is mine. I do not mean "willfully" closing your eyes, by the way. Just having them closed - again, as I see it.

I turn to the community of people who specifically disagreed or differed with me on this exact issue, when they first began dialogues with me at the Gaming Outpost or here at the Forge.

Vincent Baker, Ralph Mazza, Joshua Neff, Jesse Burneko, Seth Ben-Ezra, M.J. Young, Christopher Kubasik, and Mike Holmes.

Maybe you can provide a decent explanation where I have so far failed. This is the place to do it. Anyone else who sees himself or herself in this role, feel free as well.

However, this is not the place for people who say, "Um, I think this is it ... do I get it?" to post.

Best,
Ron

Marco

You did post an essay, and this is the beginnings of an answer.  Each of your questions could be a thread by itself.  These are the answers I can give without going into 'somebody tell me I'm right' mode.

1a.  The address of premise needs to be observable not observed.  If people are gaming in a locked, lead-lined room, no we can't observe how they're playing - but they are still playing with a creative agenda.  Likewise, IRC makes it difficult to observe what's going on, but doesn't mean that it's not going on.  If you had realtime video feeds of all of the players and a live IRC transcript, you could do the observing.

1b. The difference between Exploration of a dramatic situation vs. address of premise.  Address of premise literally requires the players to be engaged - on a conscious or subconscious level - with an ethical or moral concern that could be phrased as a question.  Sim, exploration of (dramatic) situation requires the players to be engaged with some element of the situation itself.

Egs

QuoteIs faith sufficient to defeat evil? vs Who will win, St George or the Dragon?
Will friendship overcome all hardships? vs What perils will we face climbing Mount Doom?

Now, in terms of the imagined game events clearly there could be strong parallels within each pair.   The question is, do the players care more about the underlying energy or the surface energy?

One thing you have to accept, or this will all just drive you mad, is that there will be times as an observer when you will not be able to tell the two apart.  There are some bands I like more than others, as evidenced by the length of time I spend listening to them, the money I spend on their albums, going to see them live, and so on.  But if you watched a video tape of one time I listened to one album by one band vs one time I listened to one album by another band you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell which one I like best.  Now does that mean I like them both the same?

Other times it will be damn obvious, of course.

2. Player empowerment is important in all creative agendas.  If you're not free to step on up, no Gamism; if you're not free to dream, no Simulationism; and if your not free to get hip deep in the moral issues, no Narrativism.

a. The cut-off point?  There can be no answer to this question.  The cut-off point will be different for every play group, in every instance of play.  And the drawing of the lines is equally important to all modes of play.  Which leads to...

b. 'How do the players overrule the GM?" It's a Social Contract issue, not a Creative Agenda issue.

3. What's the value of analysis: it tells you why this particular group of people are sitting down and enjoying (or not) gaming together.  That play was observed to address premise means simply that the players were seen to enjoy addressing premise.  If the only value of GNS is to increase enjoyment - and decrease the absence of enjoyment (what gets called dysfunction) - then is that a bad thing?

3a & b. I like bananas.  I like eggs.  I like bananas more than I like eggs.  I still like eggs.  If you saw me an hour ago eating eggs with some gusto - which had you been over here in England, and in my house specifically, you would have been in a position to - you might have gained a pretty good idea that if you were cooking tea for me, then you could cook me eggs and I'd enjoy eating them.   I still like bananas more, and I'd still, all else being equal, prefer to eat a banana to an egg.  But that doesn't mean there's no value to observing that I like eating eggs.

4. The observer is fallible but...  sooner or later a crunch moment will come along.  You have a choice between addressing the premise or stepping on up.  There's an hour left of play and you can either get involved in a big old fight or have a scene with your dying father.  The big old fight addresses the theme of "is one man courage enough to stop a culture destroying itself?"  The scene with your dying father allows you to gamble your compassion points in an attempt to stage a reconcilliation.  Which do you do?

If you address premise at this point, you're playing narrativist, in this instance of play.  If you step on up to the reconcilliation gamble, you're playing gamist, in this instance of play.  What you intended to do is neither here or there - what you did does matter.

And it is observable, whether or not a putative observer spotted it or not.

5. The Story Now slogan, I'm leaving up to Ron and the Narrativism essay - although I suspect a close reading of the relevant section of Sorceror & Sword would also help.

6. The Raven example is at the level of technique (or possibly ephemera, I'm not familiar enough with the example) so cannot be held to correspond absolutely with any one GNS mode.  In other words:

Quotea. Ensuring that PC's are treated as "cool" or "allowed to do their cool moves."
 b. Ensuring that PC's don't suffer un-expected, unwanted, anti-climactic, defeat?

Can be issues in certain kinds of Narrativist and Simulationist and Gamist play - and not in others.

HTH

An introduction: Marco, this is my attempt to answer your questions. It took a while to compose, and I had to do it in several segments. Please bear that in mind if I'm repetitive or reference something out of place. I think I fixed that stuff, but then again who knows.

Also, I see as I'm posting this that Ian Charvill posted a very good response. Mostly, I'm thinking, "Yeah, what he said. And he said it so much more succintly than I. Alas!"

Here goes:

Quote1. Since the "address of Premise" need not be conscious in the minds of the participants, the act of addressing is only relevant to an observer. So my questions are:

 a. If the game takes place on IRC, can there be such a thing as address of Premise or can any determination be made as to Creative Agenda (assuming the shared game-space only exists in the in-game channel)? Or does "address" only happen in person-to-person interaction? Given that *only* in game actions are available to any observer. Is pure IRC play GNS-modeless (since while there's assumed to be a Creative Agenda, a given, named mode is an observational statement).

 b. When the action of game-play resembles a story there will always be theme and address of action/situation. How does one tell the difference between someone really interested in Exploration of a dramatic situation vs. address of premise since, essentially, both will always be happening. In other words, I see no instant of supposed Narrativist play that does not equal exploration of situation. I see no way to tell one from the other, save for empowerment.

I really don't get the whole IRC thing. How is this really relevant? It's like stubbing one's little toe and deciding the whole body needs chemotherapy. I don't see the problem. There are still observations to be made in IRC, I guess it's just problematic in that there are likely to be fewer observations. It doesn't demolish the model; I don't think it warrants real concern for modification. Yes, of course "addressing" is going on in IRC narrativist games. How is this different from the notion of playing, say, over the phone. It's still real people talking to real people, albeit over a different medium.

By the way, who is this "observer"? It seems to me a bit of a mistake to create this "neutral observer, fly-on-the-wall type" for the sake of discussion. Yes, it's possible that some non-player could be sitting in the corner, taking theory notes on what he observes. So what? That's the exception to the rule. The rule is that the players are also the observers. You cannot really sanitize the observer and say that he's neutral to what's going on. The rule (not the exception) is that everyone is observing while participating in role-playing. We aren't collecting data, we're talking and interacting with people in a fun and entertaining way, and trying to make that more fun all the time. (And, as should be obvious, I'm not suggesting you thought otherwise, I'm trying to make a point against "the observer.")

The difference between someone really interested in Exploration of a dramatic situation and addressing a Narrativist premise is subtle. It's a valid question. The answer is that in Narrativism you're crafting an "answer." In Simulationism, you're exploring the situation, and not particulary emphasizing the judgment or answer of any meaningful/moral question. The Simulationist makes choices, perhaps informed by a number of things, including what other players say out loud or do via their characters. They do not prioritize the answer to a moral question.

With respect, Marco, I see you ask questions like this all the time and have trouble distinguishing because you can see it both ways. That's cool. But you can't have it both ways in a given instance.

Take these similar examples of specific Creative Agendas. Imagine an "evil campaign" -- one in which players agree they want to portray the bad guys, but for very different reasons.

The Simulationist agenda might be: "What's it like to be an evil overlord in the world?"

The Narrativist agenda could then be: "Is there a place for evil overlords in the world?"

The Simulationist explores what it's like to the position of an evil ruler. The Narrativst answers whether or not there is a place for evil rulers.

(IMPORTANT: The answer to the moral question is not "Moral" in the real-world "Ethical" sense. Of course there are no good damn reasons for tyrants and dictators. They're assholes, and I hope they rot in hell. The answer is obvious. But what fun is that? Is it also not interesting / entertaining to answer the question such that we might show how overlords could do some good, if indirectly?)

It seems like you're looking to the extremes of human behavior as your "signs" of priortizaion. You're looking for "get's excited" or "vigorous and lively" or "agonizing over choices" behavior in the human beings playing (for real or hypothetically) etc. Such extreme behaviors aren't as common around the tables I've played at. Sure, they happen, but I'm more than happy to analyze "what happens" in play, whether exciting or mild, and draw from those events reasoned, well-considered judgments about what's going on at the table. Why do we need blaring warning signs to obviate priortization?  This isn't going to happen very often. I get the sense that you're practically looking for the obvious Eureka! event to finally say, "AHA! I get it. Obviously, that was Narrativism." It's just not going to happen that way. You have to just use your own good sense and judgment, observe people interactive with people (including yourself!), and feel equipped to comment on those things. Discuss them with your group. Discuss them on the Forge. You'll be wrong. You're group members will be wrong. The Forge members will be wrong. Over time, you'll correct those observations, and then you'll have a much, much better sense of what's going on at the table, and so will your group, and so will the Forge. But, please, don't discuss their non-existence ad nauseum in a search for neon sign for addressing a premise.

Quote2. Is player-empowerment important and implied in "address" (i.e. you will say the player must be empowered in order to address the premise)? If that's the case then:

 a. What's the cut-off point? There's a spectrum from the-GM-watches-while-the-player-tells-his-whole-story to the-game's-on-rails-so-strong-only-the-GM-ever-speaks. If empowerment *is* an issue then presumably there's a cut-off somewhere along that spectrum. I've never seen that expressed in any way that's useful to me as someone trying to determine if play is empowered. Where does the definition draw the line?

I think you're making mountains of molehills, here. The issue is not empowerment. Or, rather, empowerment isn't uniquely important in Narrativism. Players need not be "empowered" to participate in addressing a narrativist premise.

I think the issue is probably that we're defining "empowerment" as "granting players powers often granted to the GM in 'traditional' games." I think our assumptions about what "traditional" games are is a damn fuzzy prospect. Many "traditional" games empowered players in astounding ways, and absurdly limited players in others. New games do, too.

The cut off point, therefore, is not one of empowerment. The cut off point is when, where, how, and why all participating players may make decisions that "answer," however minutely, the Narrativist premise, right this minute (see also my reply to question 6, below). In other words, the cut off point is how a particular group obeys the Lumpley Principle, whether by codified sytem or years-long social understanding.

Quoteb. Someone recently asked "how do the players overrule the GM?" in a Narrativist play discussion. Is that an important question? Should that be asked/answered for a discussion of Narrativist play?

My answer is that (good) system should, most of the time, answer this for the players and GM. Everyone knows when, where, how and why players assert change upon the game because the system says they can do it then and there.

But, even if it does not, I'm not sure it is an important question. Or rather, I don't think it's an important question as it relates to Narrativism only. The question is valid for players prioritizing any Creative Agenda.

Quote3. Since it seems that the Narrativist description of play only says "the play was observed to [address premise]" what is the purported value of that analysis? Is the implicit assumption made that if the play didn't end in a fire-storm argument that the audience enjoyed narrativist play? Is the assumption made that the players are Narrativists?  What is the value?

The same as the value of observations for other modes of play. I'm not sure I understand your question, actually. The value, I guess, is that you can observe this "stuff" that happens, then take those observations and turn them into information from which you can make personal judgments to yourself and among your group to make you and them have more fun. If you observe Narrativism, really like what you see to the point you know it can't get better, and everyone agrees, good for you and them. You're happy a peas in a pod and you've done a fine job enjoying your hobby. If, however, you observe these events, and see problem areas, then you can take the model and the language it equips you with, and you can talk to the actual human beings you're playing with a make things better and more fun for all. This is, from my perspective, the key value of this entire model. It assesses just what this social activity role-playing is and equips us with the language and the means to remedy our social interactions for the betterment of all.

Like I said, I'm not sure I understood the question, so I can only hope that helps.

Also, I will say that vigorous and lively does not equal an individual's absolute favorite mode in which to play.

Quote4. If I play a game and I know I am agonizing over moral choices and otherwise acting in a way that addresses a thematic question but the play for some reason "doesn't appear Narrativist to the observer" then what's going on? Is it correct to say that the play (let's assume it's a 1-GM-with-1-player game) is judged to be Gamist is it: (snip)

I'd say you're either playing incoherently, in that other players are prioritizing other Creative Agendas and ignoring your different agenda, or you're simply misinterpreting the stuff that goes on in play. You've likely just missed or misinterpreted the instances of play that matter.

Frankly, I think it's much ado about nothing. If we aren't equipped to evaluate the fairly normal, day-to-day human interaction that goes on as players communicate about in-game events that comprise an "instance of play," then we probably aren't equipped to be discussing this theory to any degree of seriousness or success.

You're getting hung up on intent, still, I think. There's a difference between thinking you WANT to agonize over moral choices, etc., and actually DOING it. If you DO something, then it's done. It's observable to others. That's what instances of play have been all along.

When you actually do that, then you are creating observable instances of play. Yes, we may frequently misinterpret those. But that's the fault of the observers, not the instances. Marco, I think you're just looking too damn hard, and maybe misinterpreting when you see something worth seeing!

Quote5. People associated V:tM's talk of Story with the promise of Narrativist play. The slogan for Narrativist play is Story Now. Considering that Story is, at best, a misleading term, why do this? Is it that:

I can see why this is confounding, Marco, especially in light of your other questions. But, I think you're spending way too much effort dissembling the term "Story Now" and getting hung up on that. Rather, I think your energy's better spent first understanding and agreeing with what Narrativism, addressing the premise and Story Now are. In effect, "getting" Narrativism. Frankly, I think you're making it far more complicated than it really is.

It is not some arcane art to which only Forge members are privvy. It is purely about game play that emphasizes / addresses / prioritizes choices such that they answer a moral premise or question.

To answer your question, Story Now is short hand for saying the following:

1) Not story later. Story right now, as in simultaneous to actual play. It is observable because play answers right now the moral question that is the premise.

2) Story now, and not other stuff now. If events don't matter to the story (i.e., if they don't address the premise) you should probably forget it and move on. Get right back to story (i.e. get back to addressing the premise), right now.

Story now does not imply "better" story as you inquire. Mainly, this is because no one can define "better" story, I suspect. It is a nearly meaningless term, and will vary from not only group to group but person to person.

Narrativism is not a judgment about the quality of role-playing at large. It simply is a kind of role-playing; it is role-playing a particulary way with other people. Narrativism is, emphatically, not "better" than Simulationism or Gamism because it seems to produce stories that are "better." In fact, it does not or may not produce better stories. A group may produce a better (meaning a more tightly constructed series of events with an outstanding and well-focused theme) while prioritizing Gamism than it would while priortizing Narrativism in a different game. Narrativism does not produce better stories than do other Creative Agendas. Narrativism produces stories in a particular way, not a better way.

To clarify, I'm using story as: A series of events that players observe in a connected, sensible manner, which may contain a recognizeable theme.

Quote6. Several listed examples of Narrativist play deal with player empowerment (Raven's movement-rules-make-my-character-suck example) rather than with theme or premise. How far does address Premise go in:

 a. Ensuring that PC's are treated as "cool" or "allowed to do their cool moves."
 b. Ensuring that PC's don't suffer un-expected, unwanted, anti-climactic, defeat?

We're back to empowerment. Yet, it seems here you're talking about what folks have called Protagonization, would that be correct?

I'm not sure how, say, "cool moves" are addressing premise. Immediately, I can't imagine cool moves as anything but color. (I may, as ever, be missing something here.) Cool moves are apparently an exploration of color. This happens in Narraitivist play because exploration happens, and because all RPGs include the five elements: color, character, system, situation, and setting. But, in narrativism, the main priority is not exploration.

As for whether characters meet an untimely demise, thereby not addressing the premise to its conclusion, I think you're missing that such an end is one possible answer to the moral question. Character death, as an example, while unexpected may indeed answer the game's premise. That is, while unexpected de-protaganization may occur, that event may actually create, in a surprising way, an answer to that game's premise.

I sense that the problem you're noting here is that somehow there must be a climax or that there must be some clearly distinguishable "final answer" in a narrativist scenario or game or series of sessions. Not so. By definition, Narrativism's "end" remains unknown.

When we say we "answer a moral question" (which is how I'm largely defining "adress a Narrativist premise") it does not mean that we're building toward some ultimate answer in The End. Not at all. Rather, because the game is prioritizing Narrativism, it is addressing the premise at every step of the way (Story Now). That is, there are a string of "answers" all along the way. We are providing "answers" at every turn, at every conflcit, at every "instance of play."

In other words, these events are observable instances of prioritizing Narrativism.

Hi All,

Since my name is on the list, I will be taking a crack at this.

I'm going to specifically address Story Now.  It'll be its own thread.  It'll take me some time to work it up.

At issue: Does narrativism promote better story?  I say, "Yes."  Without awkwardness or equivication.

Later for more details.

Christopher

QuoteWhen we say we "answer a moral question" (which is how I'm largely defining "adress a Narrativist premise") it does not mean that we're building toward some ultimate answer in The End. Not at all. Rather, because the game is prioritizing Narrativism, it is addressing the premise at every step of the way (Story Now). That is, there are a string of "answers" all along the way. We are providing "answers" at every turn, at every conflcit, at every "instance of play."

In other words, these events are observable instances of prioritizing Narrativism.

I liken it to filling in an oval on a standardized test which will never be graded, and for which there is no answer key.  It is the act of filling in that oval...of making the decision, that addresses the premise.

Its choosing Door #3 over the bonus box.  What actually is behind the door or in the box is immaterial.  Its the choice that matters.

Which reminds of the great Lyric from Rush "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice"

Excellently wrought reply Ian. I'm glad to see it. I want to clarify my first question--I'll wait for more answers until I respond to the rest of the meat.

Quote from: Ian Charvill
1a.  The address of premise needs to be observable not observed.  If people are gaming in a locked, lead-lined room, no we can't observe how they're playing - but they are still playing with a creative agenda.  Likewise, IRC makes it difficult to observe what's going on, but doesn't mean that it's not going on.  If you had realtime video feeds of all of the players and a live IRC transcript, you could do the observing.

This was more of a definitional question than I think it came across as: I completely agree and understand that there could be a player responding to a moral question in an IRC game (that shouldn't have gone in as it did)--but my point was more this:

In a log of a game that ran for years, if you don't have those video feeds (only in-game text: GM: "Make a Spot roll.") and the log is kill the monster, get the treasure, repeat, would you never be able to say it was Gamist play?*

This relates to address of premise because if you couldn't call that game Gamist based only on such a log, then you couldn't describe an IRC game rife with much moral-issue-questions-the-characters-act-on Narrativist and would therefore never be able to say "address of premise had occurred" because that would imply Narrativist play--which you can't be sure of because you don't have group-observable-social behavior.

In other words, a player might be engaged in some way with a moral question--but the labels and analysis are useless. A log of net-hack has an equal claim to be Narrativist as a log of Raven's 3rd Ed Narrativist (as I recall--I might be mistaken) D&D game.

I find that odd.

-Marco

*And if that's a clear enough extreme edge condition then how about a somewhat more complex game that has a lot of combat but some other stuff too--like say, a game that played plot-wise similarly to Lord of the Rings?

Hi Matt,

Re: mountains out of molehills/little-toe-chemo-therapy. The text of The Impossible Thing is, IMO, quite a molehill. If I told you that all those pieces of text in games that said "if you don't like the rule, just ignore it" were molehills because most people find them empowering to fun play would you be satisfied with that response?

As for the agendas:

Quote
The Simulationist agenda might be: "What's it like to be an evil overlord in the world?"

The Narrativist agenda could then be: "Is there a place for evil overlords in the world?"

The Simulationist explores what it's like to the position of an evil ruler. The Narrativst answers whether or not there is a place for evil rulers.

I know the defintions--but those examples all seem to come from a knowledge of the player's internal monolgoue. Those are not questions I've ever heard a player ask.

To me, the resulting game-play looks the same (expecially true, as I said) if the action resembes something one might find in literature. I don't think you can have it both ways--but I find telling which question someone other than I am asking an exercise in Cold Reading at best and that autistic-assisted-typing thing at worst.

Quote
1) Not story later. Story right now, as in simultaneous to actual play. It is observable because play answers right now the moral question that is the premise.

2) Story now, and not other stuff now. If events don't matter to the story (i.e., if they don't address the premise) you should probably forget it and move on. Get right back to story (i.e. get back to addressing the premise), right now.

It is my observation that simulationist play (the play I've described in actual play) generated story at the same time as play (I can't see how it would be any other way). Is story-later based on knowing the mind-set of the simulationist (Fred is a simulationist so he only recognizes the story as story after the session is over?). How could anyone know that?

How could you tell the difference from a simulationst not wanting to play something that isn't relevant to situation (i.e. I've not gamed out using the restroom in simulationst play).

-Marco

Second question removed; it was unnecessary[/i]

Quote from: Christopher KubasikHi All,

Since my name is on the list, I will be taking a crack at this.

I'm going to specifically address Story Now.  It'll be its own thread.  It'll take me some time to work it up.

At issue: Does narrativism promote better story?  I say, "Yes."  Without awkwardness or equivication.

Later for more details.

Christopher

For any definition of story? Or one specific one? (and is it a self-referential one: better-because-it-was-created-through-story-now)? And do you know why Matt disagreed?

If a non-story now game and a story game were both made into movies would the story-now how/would you expect the story-now game to be better?

-Marco

QuoteRe: mountains out of molehills/little-toe-chemo-therapy. The text of The Impossible Thing is, IMO, quite a molehill. If I told you that all those pieces of text in games that said "if you don't like the rule, just ignore it" were molehills because most people find them empowering to fun play would you be satisfied with that response?

Marco, what in the world does the Impossible Thing have to do with criticizing Ron's model because of the obscure and minute limitations IRC imposes on observations of play? To quote my fictional man, Walter Sobchak: "There is no literal connection, Dude."

So you think The Impossible Thing is molehill. Ok, that's fine. Your opinion on the matter is well known to me already. It has precisely nothing to do with the point I raised.

QuoteI know the defintions--but those examples all seem to come from a knowledge of the player's internal monolgoue. Those are not questions I've ever heard a player ask.

They do? What player? Whose internal monologue? Marco, is it so incredible to imagine that a group of people would actually say these premises out loud, even though you may not with your group? My group does this, quite vocally. Heck, we did pretty much exactly that simulationist one when we were much younger. "Guys, don't you think it'd be kick ass to see what it's like to have an evil party? Yeah, cool!" It was exploration of situation. Expressed outloud. Premise and everything.

Just because your experience is that of unspoken Creative Agendas does not prove that these examples are unrealistic or hard to grasp. I think those examples are quite palatable.

To me, the resulting game-play looks the same (expecially true, as I said) if the action resembes something one might find in literature. I don't think you can have it both ways--but I find telling which question someone other than I am asking an exercise in Cold Reading at best and that autistic-assisted-typing thing at worst.

I don't know what else to say, Marco. You're telling me that you see the observable instances of play, and you can't distinguishamong them. I think you're being to hard on yourself, and too limiting. I suspect you see an instance of play, then start wondering about whether Player X intended this or that. Forget about intent! If that's what you're doing, just stop letting your thoughts about intent kill your observations about actual play events. Just don't think about it anymore! Don't get hung up on it. It's unsolvable, and causing you more grief than good.

If you can confidently tell me you know you're a simulationist, then you clearly aren't having a hard time judging your group's instances of play. Is your difficulty of evaluating Narrativism such that you haven't ever played Narrativist games? That you aren't confident saying you did? What? If you aren't confident with identifying that, then how can you be confident saying you're a staunch Simulationist?

Also, what has resembling literature got to do with anything? Therein lies madness. Forget comparing sessions to Tolkien. RPGs are not 1000-page trilogys, or even 30 page short stories or whatever. Games might simulate the genre in pastiche, or recreate the process of addressing a Nar. premise about good an evil. Both look like Tolkein. So what? Forget about that, seriously. It only leads to more confusion, I say.

Quote1. It is my observation that simulationist play (the play I've described in actual play) generated story at the same time as play (I can't see how it would be any other way). Is story-later based on knowing the mind-set of the simulationist (Fred is a simulationist so he only recognizes the story as story after the session is over?). How could anyone know that?

Whoa, I didn't exactly say narrativism was producing "story" and no other modes were. I said narrativism was producing a story that it answered the moral question right now. That answering stuff, as I tried to say above, really isn't complicated or mysterious, either.

Think about playing Riddle of Steel (Premise = "What are you willing to kill for?"). A situation arises. You can think, "Hmm, what would my character do?" make a choice, then act. Chances are you can see this as either Sim. or Nar. Or, you can think "Hmm, is my character willing to KILL in this situation RIGHT NOW?" decide, and act. This is answering the premise. You swing the sword. Snicker-snack. Once we all see the act in play, we can evaluate that. "Wow, that guy's a cold-blooded bastard! Or a hero. Or whatever. Premise answered. Narrativism. Neato!

Also, Marco, how do you know that it wasn't narrativist play you've experienced? Did you or did you not answer / illuminate / resolve a specific moral uncertainty? If so, then it was narrativist. If not, then it was not narrativist. Easy, peasy.

If, however, your simulationist game prioritized some genre fidelity or a particular kind of exploration, yet still produced a "story," then, sure, it was story happening now, but not Story Now (as in capitalized to show what we're priortizing).

I really don't know how else to answer it for you, Marco. You seem to have a terrible time coming to grips with "Narrativism and story now = answering the moral question premise of the game Right Now." That's all there is to it.

Quote2. If a scene gets started and then due to some congruence of events doesn't wind up going anywhere or doesn't pan-out in a narrative enhancing fashion (writiers drop chapters all the time) was that section not Narrativist? And when did it cease to be so? Postmously when the particiants realized that it wasn't enhancing story?

If a scene, due to some congruence of events, doesn't wind up panning out in a gamist fashion, was that section not Gamist? When did it cease to be so? Posthumously, when the participants realized it wasn't a Step On Up proposition?

Does thinking of it in those gamist terms help clarify at all?

The only answer to the question of "does a thing cease to be Narrativist" is: Yes, when the players aren't addressing the premise, the instance is NOT Narrativist. If the players weren't addressing the premise, then they've either wasted each other's time or, perhaps, drifted the game to another agenda for that instance. <shrug>

Let's assume they're all on the same page, they're a coherent group who agreed to sit down and play, say, Sorcerer. Likely, they've wasted each other's time in that they did stuff that went no where. So what? No biggie. Next time, they'll have learned to employ some techniques better. Cut the scene, keep the bangs rolling, etc.

In the end, if they keep doing this, keep playing in a way that "ceases" to be narrativist, then they aren't playing narrativist, are they? They're drifting to something else. <shrug>

QuoteHow could you tell the difference from a simulationst not wanting to play something that isn't relevant to situation (i.e. I've not gamed out using the restroom in simulationst play).

Marco, please, please stop worrying about the physicality of observation and its medium. You leaving the room and missing some subtle queue does not somehow blur the game from Narrativism to Simulationism. Only one is happening at a time, agreed? If you miss an instance, you'll get the next one. Or the one after that. Or you won't, the game will suffer for it, and you'll still have learned something.

These questions about IRC and leaving the room, etc. are pointless, and they reek of paranoia that missing some instance of play will doom a game. As both Ian and I said, instances are observable, they need NOT be observed. Your, um, unique situations in which you or some IRC player might miss something are bizarre. They aren't really relevant to the bulk of healthy play. They are only about you (or some hypothetical IRC individual) missing something. So what? Over time, you'll (he'll) self-correct and learn more.

For heaven's sake give yourself and players in general more credit about your capacity to observe stuff and to make you own common sense judgments about Creative Agendas. It's not a science, and you will inevitably get it wrong, whether because of your own deficiency, social problems, bad Internet connections, taking a crap or whatever! You have the power to observe; it is not superhuman and infallible. Over time, you'll put it all together into an understandable point, and then you can put into motion some decisions about your hobby.

Marco,

My name's not on the list, so no, I'm not answering any specific questions, per se, but providing an observation that you can take as you will, which I hope will help you. This is a little long, so please stick with me.

It looks to me as though you missed the Narrativism bus, and now you're standing on the corner complaining that you're not getting anywhere, so there must be something wrong with the bus, and accusing those people who are getting somewhere on it that they're in some fashion misguided.

Quote"There is no bus."
"I'm on the bus."
"There is no bus. The bus is just a creation of your mind."
"I'm on the bus, real or imagined, but it's really, really taking me somewhere."
"How can an illusory bus take you anywhere?"

I'll return to this example momentarily...

In short, I see this as purely a perceptual problem from your end. There is certainly no shortage of people whom understand Narrativism and in examining a number of your questions above would do much as I'm doing:

Scratching one's head and saying, "Unh, it's OBVIOUS. Why are you even asking?" Especially when one considers that many of these questions have been asked, some in round-about ways or not as directly, by yourself for the past year(?) and more importantly answered clearly.

As an example of this "missing the obvious," the IRC question -- it boggles me. What? No GNS because the participants are not face-to-face? You're basically stating that individuals on IRC cannot be engaged in any sort of interpretable social activity or behaviors, that all interactions and results are somehow negated because the players are not physically located next to one another.

That's just...well, ridiculous. And there isn't any nicer way to put it. The fact that it's ridiculous is just so obvious that the question really can't be responded to, because...where do you start? There's so much more there than just GNS talk.

Discussing why the question is obviously ridiculous would entail dealing with some very odd perceptions about reality on the part of the questioner that may not even be possible to address by almost anyone.

So, you're failing to grasp the ideas and the resultant conversations that would by necessity have to emerge, with specific results, in order for discussion to progress aren't happening because no one really knows where to start.

Hence the whirlpools Ron brought up...around and around, spinning off into other little whirlpools.

Social context happens in IRC, it's unmistakable, limited by the medium to an extent in that certain cues are not available...but the social behaviors are all there. They aren't even crippled by the medium, they're channeled through it -- like radio -- different than an FtF session, but there nonetheless.

The bus example above would be a microcosm of the current situation, particuarly the last line...the speaker can't accept or understand how a fake bus is really, really taking someone somewhere, despite the fact that it is. The attempt to reconcile these is causing communication breakdowns.

This is definitely a real problem; but theory can't account for the variable of someone who just doesn't understand it. This doesn't mean the theory's wrong or incomprehensible, however -- much of physics is just like this to certain laypersons, even explained carefully.

Frex, in one basic physics class I took, there was an individual who simply could not understand that the sound you heard might be produced earlier than you heard it (ie: a jet flying over, the sound of thunder)...no matter how much or how you explained it to them, the person couldn't conceive of a sound not being heard when it was made.

That is, the concept of their not being able to hear sound waves travelling towards them until the sound waves arrived, boggled them.

The problem was not the theory, however, the problem was this person's perception and certain assumptions they were constantly making about how the world worked, assumptions which conflicted with the theory and appeared to create "holes" in the theory where there were none.

Something similar is happening here: you're presuming too much, or ascribing traits to items which those items have not explicitly been given.

The key to reaching understanding is in identifying the sub-context in your own thoughts. That is, rather than asking, "Why does this work this way when?" and not seeing how the answer works you need to ask yourself about the structure and properties of the elements you've created the question from -- so you instead ask, "Why do I think this means this can't do this?"

To put all that more simply: identify and question your most basic assumptions.

In the above example, the individual's problem with not understanding how they could not hear sound waves approaching them was because they made the basic, unconscious assumption that sound waves were objects in a physical sense, rather than...sound waves. And that because they were objects, she should be able to "hear" them coming because they were making noise.

And that's not all that difficult an assumption to understand a layperson making, really.

You're on about someone having Narrativist goals in mind but only seeing a record of "only in-game text: GM: 'Make a Spot roll.' and the log is kill the monster, get the treasure, repeat, would you never be able to say it was Gamist play?*"

So, what's so different about that than an FtF game where all you see and hear are the exact same? I'm sorry, but there is none, that's all you have to go on...and hence why I'm saying it's ridiculous: body movement is not going to reveal Narrativism, a guy reaching for the chips is not going to indicate Gamism, only the actual events of play, statements made (whether spoken or typed...and with or without verbal cues...in IRC, the verbal cues don't matter, and if there is misinterpretation, they're hashed out via text) will over time reveal actual method.

There's social behavior occuring through the medium of text dialogue, and that text dialogue is the only social behavior that can be observed, hence it is the only social behavior occuring. The internal and unobservable states of the participants (including "what they meant when") cannot be assessed except through anything except text, including clarifying text.

That's the social context, the interaction, and that's all there is in that mode of socialization.

As you can see, this is a little whirlpool...now we're discussing group social dynamics via electronic media, one which could easily create other little whirlpools of "what if" and "how about."

Anyways, simply: intent counts for shit. Which you know...yet your question above hinges on the intent and internal dialogue of the players as an important vector. Now, follow this up with spoken intent counting for shit -- unless backed by accordant behaviors. Observable, provable, measurable stuff.

That is, I can say all I want that "My intent is not to hurt anyone," and it doesn't matter if I'm running around cracking people's skulls with a lead pipe...I'm hurting them. Maybe I believe I'm not hurting them but curing them, but that isn't the point, and off we'd go into a whirlpool.

NO. Take it at face value.

But these are all word games, and the word games we end up playing when discussing things are an attempt to force everything to make sense from the established perspective...without examing the established perspective as the incorrect item.

This is much the same problem you and I had while discussing The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast -- the assumption on your part was "Nobody really plays that way, so it doesn't exist. All play based on it is functional play because it has already solved TITBB in order to play," yet such a take clearly missed the point and was wrong, even if it was logical (ie: sound waves are "objects," thus I should be able to hear the noise of their approach).

Now, Marco, I don't want you to take any of this as an insult to your intelligence. I know you are quite intelligent, however, sometimes there's just things that people don't get -- frex, math and chemistry are my weak points, I absolutely sucked at them in college (the "flunking" kind of sucked), but I'm quite intelligent and well-read, particularly in science and logic. Point being, there's nothing wrong with the sciences, but with my learning and understanding of them.

So, for example, your question about the use of "Story" in the term "Story Now" when "Story" has been identified as problematic is another example of missing the obvious and not grasping the actual utilization and function of the terms.

Well, why call it a "floppy" disk? It isn't floppy! There are many terms like this in the computer industry. Non-intuitive terms whose meanings are obscure when examined from the point of the term -- but those terms are shortcuts used to reference ideas, not to describe ideas.

The same exist in all professional industries, but you seem to blow right past this and bring up the use of a non-intuitive term as centrally problematic because of its connotations. But it should be obvious at this point: it's a term, a catchphrase to reference a complex concept...it's technical jargon, not the concept itself.

You're missing the obvious, ascribing ideas and functions and behaviors to things which they do not contain. The problem is perception. The problem is whirlpools and word games.

I know you're trying to understand, but maybe you're looking to the wrong source for understanding. Maybe you're examining things backwards. The bus is going somewhere; if it is going somewhere, it must exist. You must stop trying to figure out how the illusory bus is going somewhere.