Cool! I'm pretty sure I get this now.
So, to summarize the logic behind your Authority categories, during play there are...
...things leading up to a particular conflict.
...things that are part of a particular conflict.
...things happening after a particular conflict.
...everything else that serves as the backdrop.
Is that correct?
- Luke
edited to change thread title - RE
Hi Luke,
Your summary is OK as far as it goes, but stated that way, I see the potential for misunderstandings. The first is linearity - strictly within the fiction, it goes in that order, but that doesn't mean it must have been played in that order or understood in that order. The second is equivalency - lined up like that, the categories look like in-a-row ducklings of equal scale, whereas the first is bigger than and encompasses all the others, the second is bigger than and encompasses the first two, and the last two vary relative to one another.
Your use of the term "conflict" only works insofar as it's read in the most broad range possible of its meanings, and is furthermore specified to mean strictly in-fiction.
Best, Ron
Hey Ron,
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on July 26, 2012, 08:51:48 AM
the first is bigger than and encompasses all the others, the second is bigger than and encompasses the first two
Would you mind clarifying that a bit?
I completely agree that the categories aren't necessarily linear in play, and they're certainly not of equal scale. That was just a rough paraphrase of the concept to make sure I had gotten it down.
And for conflict, I mean simply that there are multiple entities (player characters or otherwise) in the fiction who change Positioning (physical or otherwise) to the point that they have one or more interests become uncertain. I was under the impression that the term for this was "conflict," but I'm okay with using "fraught situations" if that's clearer.
- Luke
I've split this into its own topic because there is only one way to do this.
Luke, pick some play-experience of your own. Any will do, as long as it was not irredeemably broken and miserable, by your standards. Tell me who was playing (briefly), in what general social circumstances, and what game it was. Choose any time in play which struck you as particularly eventful for the fiction; don't struggle to make it special in any way. Just ordinary fun play in which stuff happened.
Tell me about that and I'll tell you what I mean by the four categories. The current discussion has hit a level of abstraction - to the extent of generating bumper-sticker summaries - which I can't deal with.
Best, Ron
Ron, I wasn't asking for clarification about Authority in action. I was asking for clarification about that phrase specifically, because I can't wrap my head around how the second category can both encompass and be encompassed by the first, or be both bigger than and smaller than it. The wording doesn't make logical sense to me, so I thought it was a mis-type.
Sorry if I misunderstood and that wording is exactly how you intended it to be, though. If that's the case, I'll be happy to post some Actual Play so that you can make it clearer to me.
And my apologies if I'm wearing you out with discussions you've already had many times over, many years over.
- Luke
Hi Luke,
I realized my frustration was my fault for not splitting out inquiries earlier. Now I'm motivated.
I also understand that you are concerned with that exact phrase, and I think it's important enough (and was not discussed in the past) to merit a good thread topic. I didn't parse that phrase out of "Authorities in action," because explaining the latter can be used to target it. Or so I hope.
Anyway, here we are, and I look forward to reading about your game.
Best, Ron
Oh good, then I'm definitely on board.
A few years ago several of my friends and I were into a party RPG called "Mafia," where the players were split into camps of townspeople and mafia members by the dealing out of cards. It's an interesting game, because while everything that happens during play is fictional, the characters and players are basically the same person, meaning that all character backstory, history, and relationships end up being drawn directly from the player's relationships and history. This makes for some interesting though slightly hazardous play, as in-game betrayals always have a slight possibility of being felt as real-life betrayals. Anyway, all good fun.
Play proceeds in alternating night and day phases. During the night phases, the GM has everyone close their eyes, then has the mafia members open theirs and silently choose a townsperson to kill. This ends the night phase, and everyone opens their eyes to the GM announcing which person was killed by the mafia, removing that player from play. During the day phases, the townspeople discuss who they suspect is a mafia member, and after all the suspects give speeches to defend themselves, the townspeople vote one person to execute at the end of the day phase, taking them out of play as well. This means that two people are removed from play every 24 hours in the fiction. The goal of play is for the townspeople to execute all of the mafia members, or for the mafia members to kill off enough townspeople to become equal in number with them (at which point it would be impossible for the townspeople to outlast the mafia). There was usually a 1:3 or 1:4 ratio of mafia to townspeople. Intense Step On Up play always ensued.
This particular game had about 16 players, mostly people who were friends of mine, with a few people we had just met that day and had invited to come play with us. The card I was dealt showed that I was a mafia member, so every night my fellow mafia members and I silently strategized who to kill off next; it was often people who were starting to suspect one of us, but sometimes it was just random people to throw everyone else off our scent. During the day phases, it was often every man for himself, and I had to cast blame on my fellow mafia members several times in order to save my own skin. This was all normal and encouraged behavior, because the long-term win of mafia vs. townspeople was more important.
Eventually it was just down to me and two townspeople, which meant that this day phase was the last possible day phase. One of the two townspeople was a good friend I had made during a week of training for an internship we were in, and the other was a friend from college. The friend from college was trying to cast blame on me because he just knew I was part of the mafia, and I did the same to cast blame on him. The friend from the internship didn't know what to do. He kept being torn between the two choices and honestly had no idea which person was part of the mafia and which person was telling the truth. So then I started appealing to the things that we went through during our internship training, the camaraderie that was built during that week, etc. And if we were that good of friends, how could I lie to him so easily?
Well, it worked, and we voted to execute the other guy. Which meant that the mafia had killed off enough townspeople to equal in number with them (just me and the one townsperson left), and therefore had won the game.
And that's about it. Let me know if you need any other information about play, or if you'd like an example from some other game.
- Luke
For the people who don't know the game, here's the rules and informations: Mafia (Party Game) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_%28party_game%29)
I was surprised to see it called a "rpg" because... well, I have never seen any role-playing AT ALL in that game. All you do is simply LYING to the other players (there are no characters): "no, I am not the werewolf" (I always play the werewolf version, less problematic), as you could bluff at poker. No characters, no setting, no exploration, there is only the ritual procedure of the game: close eyes, open eyes, point finger, make noise, etc.
Did you play with variant rules to make it a rpg, or do you consider it a rpg?
Hi Luke,
I'm seeing a strategy-social game, in the same camp as Diplomacy insofar as you're drawing on real-life relationships in a daring way. In fact, the observation that only real-life relationships are raw material for strategizing is relevant, because no fiction so far can be drawn upon as a causal agent. Previous events in play are real-world only, the way a hand of poker or a choice of moves in backgammon are real-world only.
Please notice that I am not using the words "only" or "merely" or "just." It's a different activity. There already exists a huge body of theory about this activity, including game theory itself, so I have very little to add about it.
This thread isn't about the boundary conditions for what I consider role-playing. I am completely uninterested in that discussion anyway, and my boundary conditions are pretty boring and ordinary - I'd really like to discuss the issues we've raised together so far, and if you could choose an example which is so obviously a role-playing game that any attendee at GenCon would call it one, I'd appreciate it.
It's taken us, what, ten or twelve posts just to get this far? C'mon, throw me a bone please.
Best, Ron
...My ineptitude in this forum continuously baffles me. Let's try this again.
A few friends and I were playing a session of D&D 3.5. We had a veteran DM running the game, and me and three other friends playing characters. All of us were close friends, but had never played D&D before as a group. This was the first session of what we had planned on being a long campaign.
We started play in a tavern, with my Half-orc bard playing for the tavern crowd for money. The tavern keeper approached one of the other characters who "looked like an adventurer," telling him that his daughter had been captured by a warlock, along with several family treasures. No other adventurers had cared enough to go after the warlock, but he agreed to do it for a price. At that, two other adventurers in the tavern piped in and agreed to go with him. After they agreed, my Half-orc finished up his performance and asked if it'd be okay if he tagged along. They let him.
The group set out the next morning in the direction that the tavern keeper had said that his daughter was being held. Our party had to camp out in the wilderness one night, but otherwise the trip was uneventful. Once we made it to the building where the warlock was, everyone got ready to kick down the door and go all apeshit on the warlock. Right before we did, though, I stopped our fighter and cast some attack bonuses on him. Then we kicked down the door, commencing an all-out brawl to the death. The warlock was in the back of the one-room building, with the tavern keeper's daughter tied up in the middle of the room. We killed the warlock and saved the tavern keeper's daughter, and he let us take a couple of the family treasures and a decent bit of cash with us as we continued our journey.
- Luke
Hi Luke,
Now we're talkin'. I want to mention that the way you described playing Mafia was complete and informative, so as we talk about this D&D experience, I'll look for more of that of content - what the players did, how it factored into what happened in-game.
Effectively the game you're describing broke into two scenes that I can see, although if there were more, let me know. And in passing, let me mention that "half-orc bard" is one of those little antennae-twitching bits of detail which might be more relevant than it looks, later.
Scene 1 concerns "how we get together," as far as I can tell. It might even be considered a transition into play as a form of joint preparation, adding color and perceived causality to the "we're all together" requirement for play. Am I right in thinking that everyone playing knew that the point of the scene was to agree to band together on an assigned mission? Assuming I'm partly right about that, here are some more things I need to know.
How long did this scene (play in this location) take in real time? As you perceive it now, was any part of it left open to original input - i.e., the insertion of player-character priorities which would deviate from (as I perceive it) intended outcome as I describe above? Were any rolls involved at all? Any, but also specifically, perception, diplomacy, or musical performance?
Scene 2 concerns the "storm the cabin" events. Or wait, first, am I reading this right in saying that the night spent camping in the wilderness was transitional color, rather than in-fiction play - or did you have to make camp, set up watches, and all that stuff more-or-less in character?
On to the butt-kicking. I'm perceiving that all of the tavern keeper's information was good - is that right? Your opponent was the warlock by himself? Did he have specific/stated plans for her, or at least any particular reason or kidnapping her? He didn't play hostage with the daughter (bug off or she dies)? He didn't know about you specifically? More generally, he didn't have any defensive traps or anything like that set up for potential pursuers? How hard was the fight? Did any player-character get injured, and how badly?
Am I correct in thinking that the players accepted this set of events as a character-bonding experience? I'm getting that impression from the phrasing concerning "with us" and "continued on our journey." Which leads me to ask as well, And? Meaning, did you keep playing? How many sessions? Was the plan of a long campaign fulfilled?
These questions will cut straight to the one you've raised: what do I mean by Content Authority encompassing the other three Authorities, and Situation Authority encompassing Outcome and Narration Authorities. Um, I also just spotted that I'd mis-written that bit which you quoted - it should end "the last two," not the first two ...
Best, Ron
Hey Ron,
And here I had fully talked myself into the idea that you were about to blow my mind, showing me why that sentence made logical sense. Good to know that my confusion wasn't unfounded; that sentence is much clearer with your correction.
Now on to your questions.
How we got together
Yes, you're right about that assumption. We all went into the scene knowing that we would end up as a party; however, we didn't know how our characters would interact beforehand, and this was a chance to see how the relationships between specific characters would kick off.
If I'm remembering correctly, this scene took about a half hour of real-time play, with no real option to deviate from the group outcome. If someone had decided to deviate, the group probably would have made a big deal about it, forced the player to comply, and likely not invited them to play with us again without an obvious change in priorities on their part.
There were a couple of rolls: my character rolled to see how much money he earned from his musical performance, and another character rolled to perceive whether or not the tavern keeper was telling the truth. I can't remember any other rolls being made.
And the night in the wilderness was kind of a mix between in-fiction play and transitional color. We did half-heartedly roleplay setting up camp, but it was mainly to provide a sense of the journey taking more than one day. There were no rolls involved as far as I recall, just "my character pitches the tents" and "my character gets the campfire going," etc. But technically, yes, we did play this as a scene.
Storming the cabin
Yes, the tavern keeper's information proved to be good. I can't remember any motives that surfaced in interacting with the warlock; if they were there, they weren't of any consequence and therefore didn't really stick out as important.
The fight probably took about a half hour. I want to say that our fighter was knocked unconscious, but that my character was able to heal him before he was killed by the warlock. I remember for sure that no one died during the encounter. I think there were a couple of surprise spells cast by the warlock during the fight, but nothing proved too difficult. I don't know that any of us were genuinely worried for our characters' lives at any point.
Yes, this ended up being primarily a character-bonding experience; the entire encounter jumps out to me as a primarily a "look how bad-ass our characters are" type of situation, and we figured that four bad-asses were better than one, and that we could probably make a living being bad-asses together, so that's what we did.
We played one more session after this (the pirate one I talked about before, with the alignment disagreement), but life took several of us out of contact with each other (people moving out of town, me getting married, etc.), and we never got to fully play through the campaign.
- Luke
Hi Luke,
I'm not a stranger to these Life of Brian moments. I'm sure there's a cartoon out there somewhere showing armies clashing in a particularly gory mess, and there's a Biblical-looking prophet on a hillside beyond them, jabbing his finger at a page in a big text, shouting "It was a typo! A tyyyyy-pooooh!" (Shoot, I wrote a game about it, as you know!)*
The Content authority was wholly the GM's - the identity and desires and actions of every NPC, the locatio of the bad guy, the rising and setting of the sun, the size of the tavern, and so on.
The Situation Authority is interesting, because the whole business about how your characters were going to interact is just over the border of prep and play. "You all meet in a tavern" is supposed to be a long-discredited trope, but there is something to say in favor of a relatively fixed, undemanding prequel or practice-portion of play, in which nothing is supposed to be at stake, but we all learn the degree to which {how we individually choose to play our characters} will be a source of conflict.
I want to stay with that for a second, because in another group, you may have found that everyone at the table expected and looked forward to precisely the sort of social clashes between characters that your group apparently strenuously avoided. They would have come together as a group just as easily (that's the point of the scene after all, as I'll discuss below), but in terms of establishing situational content for the remainder of play, they would consider such interactions the essence of good role-playing.
That's also why I perked up a bit at the mention of a half-orc bard, a distinctly late-stage possibility in playing D&D - after all, I started right when half-orc player-characters were invented, 1977-78, and I well remember the requirement that they coud only be Anything + Evil whereas a bard could only be Anything + Good. In other words, not only was that character combo not permitted, half-orcs were originally situational dynamite, deliberately designed to be problematic. In at least some groups, even though such a combo is legal in 3.5, that legacy is strong enough for such a character's presence to prompt a bar fight then and there.
Anyway, on to Outcome Authority, which is in this case quite pre-set, and I maintain, not merely under the GM's authority, but everyone's. The scene commenced with the shared "plan" that we're all going to meet, we're going to find out what to do, we're all going to promise to do it (along with whoever the DM sends with us, which turned out to be no one in this case), and we'll all set off to do it. It ended with that plan having come to fruition.
I anticipate some good actual-play dissections of what I mean by Outcome Authority in sister threads to this one. It doesn't only pertain to scenes, just like situational authority doesn't either, but scenes are a good unit for analysis and comparison. In this case, what I'm seeing in this case is the direct opposite of games like Trollbabe and Sorcerer, in which Outcome Authority is deeply contingent on within-scene procedures and generally isn't predictable in any way. Whereas the only contingent outcomes in your tavern scene were effectively means of establishing some Color.
Narrational Authority, I don't know much about yet. It's pretty much a matter of looking at whoever described your character's success or failure as a musical entertainer, or who (I presume the DM) described the tavern keeper's reaction at your agreement to do the job in such a way that it confirmed the "yes let's do this," "here's our cue" aspect of the scene's Outcome.
So, uh, I guess the business about Content containing the other three, and Situation containing the last two, is pretty much clear, so I won't have to go into it much.
The second (real) scene looks like it was fun. Having the tough guy get knocked out and saved by a spell, and for some interesting magic to fire off a couple of times, that's solid enough D&D fight meat to occupy a session. I might have played up the girl a little in one way or another, but then again, I'm the author of Elfs (http://theunstore.com/unstore/game/33) and cannot be trusted. I'll run through the Authorities a little more swiftly this time ...
Content = DM, done.
Situation = mostly DM, but player-adjustable, as witness your character's tactical setup.
Outcome = here I'll say "mostly group" again to some extent, but with contingent features; it's at least possible in some groups that a martyred player-character would have been a welcome event as a bonding experience, for instance. Given the softball strategy for the warlock, I'm going to speculate that serious risk and possible loss weren't on the table.
Narrational = ... and again, I forgot to ask much about this, but considering that most D&D combat is played Fortune-at-the-End,** I figure narration was mostly Color ... but even that is important. Do you remember any distribution of descriptions? Did anyone go "Aargh!" when their character was hit, or go "Gunch!" (with gesture) upon a good damage roll?
So! How're we doing with this? Does my construction of the Authorities seem both necessary and sufficient for talking about play? It does to me at the moment, but that's why I want some feedback and possible holes I'm missing.
Ron
*Relic, at my Estimated Prophet page (http://adept-press.com/works-in-progress/estimated-prophet-religion-games/)
** Intriguingly, this is actually counter-textual and has been for 35 years; the one-minute round mechanics and abstract hit points encourage Fortune-at-the-Beginning, but no one ever seems to do it that way.
Hey Ron,
Quote from: Ron Edwards on July 31, 2012, 06:04:38 PM
I'm sure there's a cartoon out there somewhere showing armies clashing in a particularly gory mess, and there's a Biblical-looking prophet on a hillside beyond them, jabbing his finger at a page in a big text, shouting "It was a typo! A tyyyyy-pooooh!"
Someone should totally do a play-through of Relic where this happens.
Anyway, the half-orc did prove to be slightly problematic during play, in the sense of creating difficult situations that wouldn't have been there otherwise (i.e., weren't planned by the DM beforehand like all the other situations); a bartender refusing to serve my character comes to mind. That dynamic was intentional on my part, though; this was before I discovered/understood CA, and looking back on it, it was probably an attempt at creating Story Now play in a group of people who were playing Right to Dream. I didn't
really force Premise-addressing, though, so it didn't make play unrewarding for the others.
As far as Narrational Authority in that session went, the players described their own actions, and when it came time to roll, the DM described what happened as a result of their actions (slip-ups, missed shots, magic effects, etc.). The DM also described the actions of NPCs as well as the environment.
As for the categories... hmm... I think I need to know more about Outcome Authority in order to answer you.
In this play session, would the "outcome" of rolls be part of Outcome Authority? As in, my bard played for the tavern, so I rolled to see how much gold he got, and whoever had the Outcome Authority for those types of rolls got to say how much he got (in this case, the DM)? Or is it more at the level of scenes and above (did we end up together at the end of the tavern scene, did we defeat the warlock, etc.?)? Would describing how much gold my bard got be a matter of Narrational Authority?
Oh, and do the backstories, inventory, etc. of our characters fall under Content Authority? Or is that irrelevant to Authority?
- Luke
Great questions. This is a valuable thread considering it was founded 100% on my bogus mis-typing, which you even identified as the most likely issue. (And here you were taking all the weight for inept this-and-that ...)
Let's deal with the Content first, it being biggest and foundational 'n all, at least in terms of in-fiction causes. Character back-story and intrinsic features of character concepts (such as half-orcs' standing in for black people, which is what they do*) are all content. It doesn't surprise me to have observed a tug-of-war over (i) in-rules character creation options, (ii) perceived off-kilter concepts ("my gay barbarian!"), and (iii) GM permission throughout my entire history in this hobby. It's totally about Content Authority and its importance to all the other types, but it's also all wrapped up with confusions about Creative Agenda vs. story control vs. effective preparation vs. same-page SIS needs.
But yeah, no question, the choice of character class and race was Content Authority. It's really no different from prepping the warlock's spells, after all. The question is, who had it? You'll have to think back to actually doing it. "Make up a 3.5 guy, here's the book, done deal"? Or, "Let me look it over ... OK, that's fine"? (with the latter being about content, not about checking math or Feat legalisms)
Now for the interesting part: describing actions and dialogue in or out of formal resolution mechanics is Situational Authority. Yeah. All of the Authorities can be dialed to scale, regarding in-game time and space. You dial Situational Authority really big for "adventure prep," a bit smaller for scene framing, and a bit smaller for "I get ready to fight," and even smaller for "I use my whatchamacallit Feat." All Situational modification - most of what people call play is actually Situational Authority used at various scales by various people, in tandem (well, we hope).
So that means Outcome Authority is all about results, whether a damage roll, a statement, or whatever it takes to resolve any in-fiction uncertainty at any level. "We avoid the road and stay quiet." "They ride past without noticing." The first sentence was modifying the situation; the second provided some outcome. You can put eighteen rolls and rules-details into the transition between the two if you want, and that doesn't change.
And finally, I really want to stress that Narrational Authority isn't defined as merely about talking - all of the Authorities are expressed through talking, after all. It's about the expression of outcomes, establishing their details into the SIS. In the example above, the expression is indistinguishable from the outcome itself (or if in combat, might be limited to optionally interjecting a sound effect upon seeing a high damage roll), but in many games, the procedure do include is a careful distinction. For example, in Dust Devils, Outcome Authority is thrown very strongly into the Fortune mechanic, as utilized by the player of that character (among others), but Narration Authority is not trivial in that game and takes the outcome (e.g. the suits found in the winning hand) only as a basis for high-level choices in the ultimate effects. The narrator, who is definitely not necessarily the same person as the player who won, can decide whether the aces in the hand kill the target or just knock him out, for instance.
So let's look at the gold your bard got. I think it's a lot like my simplest example abov, but it raises a subtle issue: when Outcome Authority includes a resolution mechanic, in this case a dice roll, it devolves to whoever has "the right" to say it's time to roll ... often an unconstructed rules-feature, especially out of combat, and therefore an emergent technique for a given group. But the Narration Authority is easy in this case; it goes to the DM, full stop. "I roll X." "You get Xty-X gold pieces," making the outcome into an in-game event for everyone to imagine.
Let me know if that's making sense. There's a lot of content packed into this post, I think.
Best, Ron
* Summary of race & class threads at the Forge (http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=17827.msg188487#msg188487); also, see [Runequest: Slayers] Skulls, blood, other bodily fluids (http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=12265.0) for a self-portrait concerning these issues.
Good to hear that I'm actually contributing something now! I was worried for a bit.
Okay, Content and Outcome Authority seem much clearer to me now. Some thoughts:
At this point, Situational Authority seems to me to be completely a matter of Positioning. In other words, the characters' (including non-player) physical locations and interests shift until the result of one or more interests becomes uncertain, in which case resolution mechanics are invoked and Outcome Authority is applied.
To point back to my play example, the tavern scene was a chance for us to make clear some Positioning between player characters, so we shifted around slightly (physically, socially, emotionally, etc.) until the pre-decided group Outcome of "teaming up" was reached. In the fight scene, however, our physical Positioning became more important, since our Position of "wanting to fuck up the warlock" had already been established in the tavern scene. Both times, though, it was still a matter of Positioning (i.e., modifying the Situation), for the DM and the players alike.
Am I right in thinking that? Or did I just butcher Positioning and Situational Authority with one fell swoop?
I also have another question regarding Outcome Authority: would an example analogous to the Dust Devils one be in Apocalypse World, where "good," "complicated," and "bad" are the Outcomes, but the description of what good, complicated, or bad things happen falls under Narrational Authority?
As it stands, the concept of Narrational Authority is the only fuzzy, non-necessary category to me at this point. Right now it just seems at most like a subset of Outcome Authority. I can't put my finger on an example of this in play yet, so I may be way off base, but it seems like it's possible for something similar to happen with Situational Authority (the situational setup as separate the narration of the situation). I'll post an example if I can think of one.
- Luke
Regarding Positioning and Authority, we should clarify what makes most sense out of your phrase "... a matter of." Positioning is a character feature, whether a quality on a sheet or a stated movement in play, or anything like that. Situation is a much bigger category; I'd say, Positioning refers to many of the Techniques which establish and keep Characters firmly embedded in Situation. Or perhaps can establish, as Positioning would be
All which would go to say that Situational Authority often draws upon Positioning information, whether old (on the sheet e.g.) or new (where my guy is standing when at the moment of scene framing).
Or at least that's what comes to mind here at this moment. Any thoughts of yours are welcome.
Your example from Apocalypse World nails it in one. Which is why I'm puzzled about your final comment, because it seems to me you just showed exactly why Narrational Authority isn't merely a by-blow of Outcome Authority. It's true you can't have Narration (of this sort) unless you have an Outcome to work with, but I think that's trivial - in the same sense that you can't have Situation unless you have Content, or alternatively the potential to shore up the Situation with revealed Content.
That's really the core of all of this, isn't it? That the four things are indeed crucially causally connected in-fiction, but the Authorities across them can be distributed across people at the table, and even distribution within any one of them can also be traded about. Doing this constructively is the essence of playing without Murk, as you noted earlier I think.
Best, Ron
Hmm... I'm seeing that my confusion about Narrational Authority might be just a case of wanting symmetry where there doesn't need to be any.
Looking at the categories again, as they happen chronologically in the fiction...
Content Authority is present whether any Situation is in play or not. Regardless of our characters ever walking into that tavern, that tavern could have persisted as Content. Nothing looking like normal play would have happened without a Situation, but there nonetheless could have been shared imagined Content about the tavern, what it looked like, what beverages were served there, etc. So any Situation arising, such as that of our characters being in the bar and talking to the tavern keeper about his troubles, does so out of the foundation laid by Content Authority, and when the Situation is over, anything else added to the fiction still falls under Content Authority.
The same is true of Situation to Outcome. Outcomes ("we all end up in an adventuring party") arise specifically out of Situations ("we're here in a tavern and the tavern keeper is talking to one of us"), and when it's no longer a matter of Outcome Authority, Situational Authority takes over again ("we travel through the wilderness towards the cabin"), until it ends and goes back to Content ("quaint countryside populated with at least one tavern and one warlock").
With Outcome to Narration, though, it's not a matter of Outcome being foundational to Narration so much as Outcome passing Authority off to Narration. When Narration Authority kicks in ("he gives you his gun"), it does so directly after Outcome Authority (went aggro, rolled an 8), but once Narrational Authority has done its work, there is no Outcome to go back to. Things go directly back to Situational Authority.
And that's why I said that it seems like a subset of Outcome Authority: the relationship between Outcome and Narration isn't the same as Content and Situation or Situation and Outcome. But, like I said at the beginning of this, they might not need to have the same relationship. Regardless, they're all causally connected and can indeed be productively distributed about the table.
Actually, now that I'm thinking about it some more, Narrational Authority almost seems like Situational Authority in that both of them modify the Situation (especially in AW, the Narration specifically escalates Situation; I can't speak to Dust Devils, since I've never played it). Narration just does this modification as a direct result of Outcome. If that's true, then it would explain why Outcome to Narration isn't the same type of Authority change as from Content to Situation.
Thoughts?
Anyway, as far as my talk about Positioning goes, I think that's just me using "Positioning" and "Character" too broadly. I tend to think of Characters as anything that is capable of intent towards an effect, regardless of it being an individual or group, or even if it isn't normally thought of as sentient. So I think that's just a misuse on my part of terminology intended to be more specific than that.
- Luke
Hi Luke,
I am puzzled by your final point, because I look at characters in stories exactly the same way - if an inanimate object tangles up a hero's legs in a fight, it can be considered a combatant. I like to point to the final line in a chapter of
The Fellowship of the Ring: "Caradhras had defeated them."
So whatever was causing your mental itch, I'm pretty sure that distinction wasn't it.
I'm going line by line again - not my usual recommended way to reply, but I think this is a rare instance when it will make things clearer.
QuoteContent Authority is present whether any Situation is in play or not.
Yes.
QuoteNothing looking like normal play would have happened without a Situation, but there nonetheless could have been shared imagined Content about the tavern, what it looked like, what beverages were served there, etc. So any Situation arising, such as that of our characters being in the bar and talking to the tavern keeper about his troubles, does so out of the foundation laid by Content Authority, and when the Situation is over, anything else added to the fiction still falls under Content Authority.
Yes again. As a counter-example, in my long-ago Hero Wars game, one memorable moment came when the characters were rounding a turn on a mountain path, and they could see the dragon's bones which actually defined the mountain, partly exposed. The players were enthralled by this idea and had their characters run around for a while, just soaking up the moment. There was no Situation, or as little as there could possibly be insofar as it's needed for play. Play was as close to pure Color for pure Setting as it could get.
QuoteThe same is true of Situation to Outcome. Outcomes ("we all end up in an adventuring party") arise specifically out of Situations ("we're here in a tavern and the tavern keeper is talking to one of us"), and when it's no longer a matter of Outcome Authority, Situational Authority takes over again ("we travel through the wilderness towards the cabin"), until it ends and goes back to Content ("quaint countryside populated with at least one tavern and one warlock").
Yup. Although as Moreno's thread is showing, switches in scope and rate of authority use, and which goes to which (and to whom), are quite variable. You've described a simple and easy-to-understand example.
QuoteWith Outcome to Narration, though, it's not a matter of Outcome being foundational to Narration so much as Outcome passing Authority off to Narration. When Narration Authority kicks in ("he gives you his gun"), it does so directly after Outcome Authority (went aggro, rolled an 8), but once Narrational Authority has done its work, there is no Outcome to go back to. Things go directly back to Situational Authority.
Maybe. However, Moreno's example shows me that Narration-Outcome-Narration-Outcome et cetera is possible, and I'm also thinking of the distinctive qualities of a round-by-round conflict in Sorcerer, in which narrations and outcomes are very distinct, but highly dependent upon one another in sequence.
I'm getting the idea that you are moving too quickly for some large-scale, dependable principle by which to relate the four things, and perhaps it's better to go softly, game by game, speculation by speculation, thread by thread, dialogue by dialogue instead. Especially if more people start participating with threads and interpretations of their own - you don't have to wrap up the issue with a neat bow all by yourself.
Best, Ron
But, but, bows are pretty.
Seriously, though, Moreno's example does make the relationship between Outcome and Narration Authority seem clearer. However, it makes Narration look even more like Situation Authority to me, albeit Situation Authority directly influenced by one or more Outcomes. In his example, the "jumping into the car and driving away" along with the "if I am hit or not and where and with how much damage" both seem to specifically modify the Situation, and therefore seem to be Situation Authority. Or am I looking at that incorrectly?
Regarding my use of "Positioning"... Looking at the tavern again, it was all just Content until Positioning arose on the part of our characters and the tavern keeper. For our characters, the Positioning was our location in the tavern as well as a general openness to adventuring (an implied Position that was fully present in all of our characters). For the tavern keeper, it was also his location in the tavern along with his desire to get his daughter back, and his lack of strength/bravery/whatever to do it himself. These Positions set the Content in motion, giving rise to the Situation of "we're here in a tavern and the tavern keeper is talking to one of us." Without the Positioning (i.e., any vectors of physical, social, mental, etc. movement (intent) on the part of any Character), it would have remained Content. Or am I missing or misusing something here?
- Luke
Actually, let me change that. The "if I am hit or not and where and with how much damage" doesn't seem to modify the Situation, and just looks like Outcome Authority to me. The "jumping into the car and driving away" definitely still looks like Situation Authority to me, though.
- Luke
(By the way, this double post is here because I can't figure out how to edit a post, even within the one minute after submitting it that the general rules allow. Sorry about that.)
Hey Luke,
Outcomes modify a Situation by definition; think of them as smaller Situation authority from the inside-out and as driving in-Situation time forward in a consequential way. Or what I'm trying to say is that the old Situation is still there, and for Situation authority to get invoked again, the current one has to have come to some kind of break.
Film and prose have arrived at many interesting ways to crosscut and establish parallel among several situations, so that they develop and resolve in a highly effective montage, whether simultaneous in the fiction or not. Role-playing techniques for this remain primitive, although I've tried to work with that variable, most obviously in Spione. Therefore at the moment, we can talk about "the" Situation and account for nearly all role-playing experiences to date.
Your Positioning summary seems pretty good to me. The only other bit that you (belatedly) mentioned was that your half-orc bard did get a little flak from someone at one point, which counts as Positioning too.
Best, Ron
Hey Ron, sorry for the delayed response.
I get that Outcomes modify Situation, just like Situations modify Content. I should have been more specific: while Situation Authority modifies it and leaves it open to further modification, Outcome Authority modifies the Situation and closes it off to further modification (at whatever scale it's operating at).
What I'm having a hard time with is that I can't see, in any example so far, what Narration Authority does differently. So far, all I see it doing is being tied with Outcome Authority (and in no way distinct from it) or modifying and leaving open a Situation (at whatever scale). The only difference between Narration and Situation Authorities in Moreno's AW example that I can see is that Narration comes about as a direct result of the Outcome.
All that said, I have a feeling I might be missing something obvious here. I just can't tell what it might be.
Oh, and yes, my half-orc bard did get flak, but not until the next session (which is why I forgot to mention it as Positioning here). But considering all of that, do you still say that Situation is more than the sum total of all relevant Positioning? If so, what more is there?
- Luke
Hi Luke,
Those questions are getting pretty abstract for me. Given long years at the Forge, I've found that when discussions get more and complex about finer and finer details, they tend to lose their utility. I'll try to deal with that by getting very focused on real play examples.
It also strikes me that something I feel or perceive keenly in play - especially across multiple designs - may not be as distinct for others. I don't know whether the way I see it is simply a matter of directing others' attention, or a matter of plain and simple difference of viewpoint. If it's the latter, then I don't want to be in the position of cuffing someone repeatedly and saying, "Just look at it right, for God's sake." So I ask that we reserve the possibility that we don't agree, without it being a problem.
OK, so let's see about this Narration authority thing. At its simplest and probably most familiar, let's go to playing D&D 3.25 (as I like to call it; I used 3.0 and 3.5 core books essentially at random during play), with any of the ordinary damage rolls we utilized in four or five sessions. I want to consider two things:
i) The quantitative damage roll itself, when acknowledged verbally, which is to say, when someone says the number and its relevance is either immediately understood or immediately explained. This may or may not involve secondary mechanics, but in the case of a standard D&D hit from this design era, armor and so on have already been accounted for, so doing 9 hits of damage means exactly that. Specifically, 9 less than whatever the target currently has - so this could be a nice start to whittling it down from umpty-ump, or the finishing blow if we've already done the heavy lifting, or perhaps it's most relevant in tandem with someone else's tactic, like a spell or whatever.
ii) The description of what happens. In this case, almost all of the description seems like it's Color, but it's important in two ways, well, actually three. The first is that without any narration at all, the SIS doesn't change. Even in groups accused of being absurdly SIS-light, you still hear phrases like "I hit!" which in terms of pure numbers, are unnecessary. I maintain that all outcomes need "finishing" of this kind, which is more than Color (and typically includes it) - it's cementing into Exploration what until that second was only Techniques. The second is that the narration is itself a window for modification, again, more than Color (which would be for instance a gruesome sound effect), but circumstantial. Although nowhere in these or any other D&D rules do they say, "When you describe what happens, you can change it a little," I see it all the time in play, sometimes as an effective Force tactic, sometimes as group-celebrated Director Stance. And perhaps less groovy, this is also the moment in which the description can reveal previously-hidden information - "It doesn't seem to notice!" Players respond: "What? Oh shit!" as the DM's prep is revealed.
Now let's try that with a very concrete example from the same game. Eladd the vile wizard is escaping from a hot fight on his Instant Steed, it's Dan's turn, and acting on a broad hint, he has his character Forin use Mage Hand to stick a spear into the horse's spokes legs to trip it and thus pitch Eladd to the ground. In this case, there's no roll; the spell description clearly makes this action utterly legal, and when he says it on his God-given moment of announced action during the round, Forin does it. I see whether Eladd makes his Agility save; he does not, so he hits the ground and takes fall-and-sprawl damage.
I hope you can see that although this is exquisitely done by the rules, it also requires me, as narrator, to say things like "Eladd goes over the horse's head - can he land safely?" Or anything like that. Perhaps I would have bagged all that and simply knocked him out. Perhaps I would have said he rolled once to stay in his saddle, and then if not, to keep from going over the horse's head, and then if not, whether he lands OK ... What I'm saying here is that narration in this case had a great deal to do in establishing what aspects of the system were going to be called into play - i.e., it is required to raise the next question as a core functional feature. I submit that the rules in that game leave such a gaping window right there, that one can practically arrive at a taxonomy of DMing based on that variable alone (what you do with that window) to which any other detail of DMing differences can be considered a mere footnote.
See [D&D 3.0/3.5] Spells and swords - fight! (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=19889.0) for the thread about that session, if you're interested.
Now let's try that yet again with Dust Devils. This game differs profoundly from any application of the 3.0/3.5 D&D rules I've ever seen, done, or heard of, because the "roll" (draw really) concerns only the Outcome, stopping shorter of any concrete - in fact, narrated - material than any other game I know of with this degree of fine-grained resolution.
Geez, this would have been ... almost ten years ago, playing with the very early version of the rules. Maura's character, a very cranky half-Indian woman if I recall correctly, fired her rifle at one of the ruffians pursuing her into the town square. Her hand beat his with all kinds of points to use (I won't go into the mechanics; they've changed a lot from them anyway.) The immediate situation was complex; there were about six characters all shooting at one another or otherwise causing mayhem.
In Dust Devils, all hands are revealed at once and there's no real order derived from the cards. The order of what happens depends on the narration, although every "X beats Y" has to be accounted for. (So the narrator cannot obviate a victorious exchange by pre-empting it with something else.) And here's even more so: the narrator also interprets the numerical comparison extremely freely. In the case of a "spades" damage situation, which this one was, the cards told us all that the ruffian was going to take on a huge penalty from this damage. But that's all. Exactly what she did to him was open to narration: the bullet might have hit the horse, so he was thrown; the bullet might have creased his scalp and knocked him out; the bullet ... well, anything you want, as long as it results in physically-manifested penalties.
In this game, the narrator is the person with the highest card in hand, regardless of what that has to do with the conflicts. So it's not "winner narrates" or "player narrates," it's simply who holds that card. Conflict results are done by poker score, so the winner is often not the narrator.
I was the narrator. I had the bullet take the ruffian between the eyes, and he was dead before he hit the ground. And I did this as part of my description of what happened, i.e., exactly when we were getting Techniques-based Outcomes into the Exploration level.
What I'm trying to illustrate with these three examples is that consequential narration is sometimes squished right into the same thing as stating the rules-dictated consequences of the Outcome, but sometimes it is much different - and that this distinction is not merely a simple matter of "traditional like D&D" vs. "pervy Forge shit like Dust Devils." I think it's a key design and play issue, especially since it's also something a group can arrive at without knowing it, and apply to new games without knowing they're gumming up the way this rules-set does it.
Does that make sense? (when I ask this, I mean it very literally, without the implication that "it certainly does and do you see it.")
Best, Ron
Hey Ron,
Yes, that absolutely makes sense (and not in a "I don't get it but I'm sure you must be right" kind of way). The Dust Devils example especially makes it obvious how Narration modifies the Outcome, instead of just talking about the specifics of it or setting up more Situation. So consider me on board for all the Authority categories at this point.
- Luke
Hey Ron,
Out of curiosity, was Plot Authority supposed to be something like Outcome Authority for the big (session-level) Situation?
- Luke
Oh God, who knows. Whatever you imagine my reasoning might have been is probably more sensible than whatever it really was.
I'm pretty set on the current construction, although not necessarily on the word "authority." Even if the notion I previously held was sensible, I can't imagine how I thought the very term "plot authority" would be non-toxic in the context of role-playing history.
Best, Ron