What's narrativist about Zero RPG?
mcv:
Browsing around on the forum, I noticed that replying to individual sentences is frowned upon according to local etiquette, and may be seen as a flame. I'd like to point out that my previous post is in no way intended as flame. I'm just trying to be really explicit about what I'm confused about, hoping that that will enable you to explain it to me more clearly.
In the end, all I want from this thread is to understand what you mean by "Narrativism", and how it differs from several styles of play that I think are Simulationism, so I may understand what the "new guy" in my group really means when he says he doesn't like Sim at all and wants to try Nar instead.
Per Fischer:
Hi mcv :)
I'll throw in a comment or two while Ron is away, hope that's OK - and may I add the wish that this thread could incorporate some "Actual play" instead of purely speculative?
One of the many points in the Story Now essay is that the fact that you are able to tell what went on in the game's fiction as if telling a "story" afterwards, doesn't give you any clues about what kind of agenda the participants were engaged in while playing. If you're saying "Narrativism = story outcome" you're missing a vital point.
The core thing is that when you engage play with this agenda, you create that story through play. The story is not pre-planned or laid out before playing through it , hence "story now". Play becomes a proces, a creative proces, or as Ron puts it: concerning "the core emotional motor of experiencing and creating a narrative". I think that's rather nicely put, and describes pretty welly what exites me about play.
I don't know if that's helpful, mcv, but I think the above is a necessary starting point before you can ask or nvestigate why a particular game supports one agenda or the other.
I do understand your connfusion over Ron's distinction between "narrative" and "narration", I'm struggling with that as well. I'm sure there was a thread here somewhere where the difference was explained, but I couldn't find it. Help?
mcv:
Hi Per,
That narrativism isn't the same as story, I already got from Ron's article. What confuses me is that narrativism apparently is about narrative, or possibly narration, and I don't understand the distinction.
Creating a story through play sounds more meaningful, but is that necessarily the same as focusing on moral (or other) dilemmas in play? I have my doubts. I think in any RPG where players have a lot of freedom and are willing to use it, story is created through play. And that includes quite a lot of what I understand to be Simulationism. Then again, what I understand to be Simulationism is extremely broad, and I'm starting to get the impression that that includes Narrativism.
From what I understand from GNS and Other Matters of Roleplaying Theory, Simulationism is focusing entirely on Exploration. Celebrating it, even. And one of the five aspects of Exploration is Character. This leads me to believe that "deep character roleplay" is Simulationism. And yet deep character roleplay can lead to exciting story, conflict and moral dilemmas.
In order to avoid discussing another badly understood term, I guess I should offer a working definition of "deep character roleplay", so here's mine: It's seeing your PC not as a sort of avatar of yourself in the game world, but as an independent person with its own personality, world view, beliefs, goals, etc; and in play trying to do justice to that character, its personality, beliefs, goals; and trying to get inside its skin, instead of merely using him as a set of stats with which to interact with the world.
Of course there are still many ways to go about this. One of the pitfalls is getting so involved in that character that you forget to share it with the other players. In another thread, Big J Money seems to have an inflexible deep character roleplayer that doesn't share, and that causes problems with the other players who just want to get on with the challenges ahead.
To insert some actual play (as per your request) into this discussion, one particularly intense session was the result of two character roleplayers with very incompatible characters going head to head. It was a one-shot, and the GM had designed all three characters (I think it was a try-out for CORPS, a system we were enamored with at the time): a Mad Max type, a Victorian Mad Scientist, and a Wizard from a fantasy world. I played the mad scientist, the other character roleplayer (an excellent roleplayer, but dominant personality, he enjoys making his own plans or messing with those of others, and has a tendency towards being a Prima Donna) played Mad Max, and the third player (more of a casual player) played the wizard. Wizard and Mad Scientist were teleported to Max's post-apocalyptic world where apparently there's some sort of problem caused by scientifically minded people. Mad Scientist was supposed to be the perfect guy to find the solution.
Instead, Mad Max and equally Mad Scientist had a serious personality clash that derailed the whole thing. It started with "Oh, you're a doctor? We could use a medic here", escalated with Max insisting he explore the bad guys' lair on his own, Scientist following him anyway, falling and breaking his legs, and Max leaving him there, and ended with shots being exchanged and Mad Scientist joining the bad guys, because they at least respected Science.
It was by far the most intense RPG session I've ever seen, and then some. Not something I'd like to repeat for two big reasons:
1. There was a third player. He had a character too, but was completely overshadowed by the escalating conflict between two stubborn character roleplayers.
2. When it was over, I needed to remind myself that these were my friends that I liked to play with, and I didn't want to kill them at all.
The fact that we completely derailed the GM's plans is of little importance to me, but a session that's closer to scary than fun isn't good, and the third players needs a chance to play too. Instead, his wizard's role was crushed between the huge lumbering personalities we created out of the other two characters. We did, however, get plenty of story and moral dilemma, and it was all player generated, directly resulting from play itself. That and the immersion is something I'd love to see more often in our group. Just without those two problems.
So is this Narrativism? Accidental Narrativism? Narrativism coming from Simulationism? Or does it have nothing to do with Narrativism at all?
And what does that mean about deep character roleplaying? Is it Simulationist, Narrativist, or a bit of both? Or does that distinction even matter?
(Two other, more practical issues are: how can we get this level of deep character roleplay more often, and most importantly: how do we keep it from overshadowing "shallow" character roleplayers? But I think that would deserve a thread of its own.)
Marshall Burns:
mcv,
Here's something that made things click for me:
So, make up a character. He wants something, k? Something concrete or abstract or both, but it's something. Put obstacles between him and that something, and have him take action to try to overcome those obstacles. Make sure his actions stem from who he is as a person, whether that means following his personal tenets, breaking from them, or some combination thereof. Gradually escalate and complicate this conflict, until it comes to a head and the situation finally resolves in some manner (i.e. for better or for worse), due in some part to the protagonist's actions.
If you do that, whether in your head or on a piece of paper or in a roleplaying game, you just created a story. In that process, you also addressed a Premise, and your story thus expresses a theme. Whether you meant to or not. And this can happen in Narrativist play, Simulationist play, and Gamist play. The difference is, is that the fun part?
A good trick to tell what you've got is, where did the protagonist's thematic decisions come from? When I say "thematic decisions," I mean all decisions that led to the situation's resolution and had an impact on the nature of that resolution.
So, here's some sources of thematic decisions that are not Narrativism:
1. Frontloaded by another person. Usually the GM, as in he preps the adventure and we play along.
2. Frontloaded by the game's design. kill puppies for satan is my go-to example for this one.
3. Frontloaded by character. Like when we play D&D with strict adherence to alignment. "My guy's Chaotic Good, so he's going to break laws to benefit others whenever he gets the opportunity;" doing otherwise would be a breach of contract.
4. Frontloaded by motifs and tropes. "This is what happens, because this is what would happen in Star Trek." Also known as pastiche.
Here's where thematic decisions come from in Narrativism: the character's player.
Does that help at all? Hopefully I have not muddied the waters.
-Marshall
mcv:
That definitely helps a bit, Marshall. But I'm not out of the woods yet.
Quote from: Marshall Burns on February 11, 2009, 07:40:08 AM
So, here's some sources of thematic decisions that are not Narrativism:
3. Frontloaded by character. Like when we play D&D with strict adherence to alignment. "My guy's Chaotic Good, so he's going to break laws to benefit others whenever he gets the opportunity;" doing otherwise would be a breach of contract.
(...)
Here's where thematic decisions come from in Narrativism: the character's player.
Depending on how I interpret this, there seems to me there's a big gap between these two, and I'm in that gap. Or I fit one or the other, I'm still not sure.
You say one comes from the character's player, which gives me the impression that it's about me, rather than my character's personality. But the other is about a game mechanic. That's what alignment basically in D&D. Not a very good one IMHO, and I really don't like using alignment as a shortcut for a real personality. There's millions of different personalities that would count as Chaotic Good in D&D, yet they'd all react differently to a variety of situations. And there's milions more personalities where it's not obvious if they're Chaotic Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Neutral, or something else entirely. Witness the many "What alignment does Batman (or whoever) threads on various forums.
I don't want to make decisions based on alignment, but I also don't want to make decisions based on what I would do in a situation. I want it to be my character who makes the decision. I mean, sure, he's just a figment of my imagination, but he's real in my head, and I've asigned him a personality of his own, distinct from mine. I want to think: What Would Bob the Barbarian Do? when I make a decision. That's what I call "deep character roleplay", and I still don't know whether that counts as Sim or Nar in the GNS model.
My take on this (so far) would be:
Gamist decision: My guy has alignment X or disadvantage Y, therefore I must do Z. (But if had any freedom in the matter, I'd take the most profitable option.)
Narrativist decision: I think doing Z would be interesting/fun/dramatic/whatever.
Simulationist decision: Considering Bob the Barbarian's unhappy childhood, his principled stand on X, and his weakness for Y, I think action Z is most appropriate for him.
But is that what the agendas really mean? Or am I still mixing stuff up? Is Narrativism about making decisions that suit the character from the character's perspective (which is what I usually try to do), or is it about making decisions that make a cool story?
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