Establishing Premise in Serenity RPG
mcv:
This thread is the next step in my quest to understand Story Now and how to give it to a new player who doesn't like Simulationism. It continues from What's Narrativist in Zero RPG?, and I'm quoting a couple of points brought up there. I'm letting go of Zero as my example and am using Serenity instead, since I actualy intend to start a campaign with that.
Quote from: JB on February 11, 2009, 04:43:18 PM
McV did mention Serenity RPG as a possible example of a narrativist game though, and I can say a little something about why/how Serenity isn't narrativist. Seems like we've likely moved beyond that on this thread though, and I don't want to threadjack,
That's what this new thread is for. Why/how is Serenity not narrativist, but also: can I do anything to make it narrativist. I think the answer lies in understanding Premise and what to do with it.
Quote from: FredGarber on February 11, 2009, 11:09:51 PM
I believe Too Much Analysis Kills the Fun. At some point, GMs and Players need to step away from the theory and say "knowing what I have learned, can I make my game session deliver more Moments of Awesome?" and try it out.
Of course I want more Moments of Awesome, but then again, who doesn't? But yes, I want to try it out, and for that reason I want to move into a more practical direction. How to get Awesome in Serenity (in a way that the new guy also considers awesome), and if/how Premise can help me. Or which Premise, and how to address it.
Quote from: FredGarber on February 11, 2009, 12:40:28 PM
Also yes: games based on TV shows (like Serenity) are often good vehicles for Narrativist Play. Unfortunately, they tend to be designed around a Gamist/Sim bias: Unless your group is created to be a rag-tag band living on the frontier fringes of a civilized universe, taking whatever jobs they can to stay free, then there isn't really a whole lot of rules to the rule book. What if the game was designed around, instead of a Guns rating, Jane has a Loyalty rating, and the dice roll isn't whether or not Jane can successfully shoot the Alliance guy kidnapping River, but does he shoot the bad guy or give in and turn over River? It'd be a very different sort of character sheet.
It is, but to me, that also feels like I'm taking the character's free will away from the player, and putting it in game mechanics.
Quote from: FredGarber on February 11, 2009, 11:09:51 PM
BTW: I think you nailed the important part of my hypothetical Serenity build: The challenge is directly about how the Story/Plot goes. Note that that's just an example of how to use System Mechanics to push a game into Story Now mode, instead of using the current Serenity Mechanics, which push the game into Step Up or Support the Dream category. You certainly can play any type of game with any System: But some Systems have a lot more pain and work on the part of the GM to reward different agendas.
I admit Serenity RPG has lots of elements in common with Step Up and Dream supporting systems, and I don't doubt it can support those approaches well. But it also has Plot Points, which the player can spend on just about anything, including introducing a situation related to Premise or Theme. And the GM can reward Plot Points for anything, including for addressing Premise (although I'm still not completely sure what that means, but that's what this thread is for). Basically, I think Plot Points, how they're spent and how they're earned, can have a huge impact on how the game is played. They're not earned at the end of the session and only spent to get a bonus on a roll, they're earned constantly for doing cool stuff, solving problems, facing your Complications (Disadvantages that make life interesting in the Chinese-proverb sense), and, well, why not for addressing premise in an interesting way?
But I need to get a better grip on Premise first. And instead of vague theorising, I want to get practical about it with examples of premises and how they affect play. Actually, FredGarber already did that for Luke and the Deathstar, but here I want to try to focus on Serenity instead (though if you're unfamiliar with the setting, examples for other settings are good too). Why Serenity? Because unlike Zero or Star Wars, I do want to use that game some day soon (as a replacement for my failed Firefly/Traveller campaign, which could easily fill a thread of its own), and I want to make our new guy happy with a more Narrativist angle.
Fortunately, Serenity RPG is nice enough to identify a couple of underlying themes (in a paragraph labeled "Underlying Themes" (p.167 in case you own the book)): Thrilling Heroics, Hidden Secrets, Outcasts & Misfits and Freedom. Personally, if you want to stay close to the style of the TV show, I think there's at least one more: Keep Flying. I'll get into them below. (I'll make all themes and premises I think I've identified bold.)
First, are these themes the same sort of themes refered to in Story Now? The book tells me:
Quote
Some basic themes can help involve the crew in the story you're creating in your role as Game Master.
It says the GM is creating the story (which is very not Story Now), and the theme will get the players involved in that story. Will it? And, if so, how? Let's look a bit closer:
Thrilling Heroics: The book isn't clear on whether this is about cinematic stunts, or about being the good guys. "Be wary of allowing players to create characters who are nasty, evil, no-good skunks. Some greedy scoundrel-types are acceptable, but there's a limit. Flawed people are interesting, but flat-out evil folk will end up locked up or on the wrong end of a gun barrel." Sounds like they're suggesting Force. But in the TV show, murder is definitely being considered. Betrayal happens. They're definitely not incorrigible do-gooders. Mal (the captain) keeps insisting he's a bad man. Some agree, some don't.
I guess one interesting Premise could be: "How much of a good guy can you afford to be?" (Am I correct in thinking this sort of question is what Story Now means by "Premise"?)
Hidden Secrets: There are several of these in the TV show. Particularly: "Why does a priest know so much about crime, military, and shooting people in the kneecaps?" and also: "Why did the government mess with the young girl's brain? And what did they do to her?" and related to that: "Why does the messed-up girl attack logos of a food company?" But while those are questions, I don't think they're premises. Or are they?
I suppose in Story Now, it's vital not to have the answer to these mysteries in advance. The priest's player may not know what his character's history really is, and by addressing that question in play, in the situations the players encounter, bits of the answer might develop out of how the players deal with those situations. I think. Could these questions be personal premises, rather than premises for the entire group?
Outcasts & Misfits: That just describes the group of characters. Hardly addressable as premise, right? The book says: "The kind of folk who get into the scrapes likely to happen in a campaign are not the sort who settle down and raise a bunch of young 'uns. The scrapes they are in may not have been part of their original live-plan, but circumstances have forced them to become misfits who can't find a place in life -- but might find one with a group of other misfits." And suddenly I find myself asking the question: "Why don't you fit into normal society?".
In most RPGs, the characters don't operate in normal society, yet we rarely question why. In Firefly, each character has its own reason to be on the move, on the run, to keep flying. They're all different, and for some of the characters, this is addressed in the TV show (not for all, unfortunately). It could be interesting to do something with that question in an RPG, but how?
Freedom: The book says: "Freedom and what it truly means to be free is a strong underlying notion that should play a part in any Serenity campaign. What is the price of freedom? Should living safe be purchased at the cost of freedom?" Well, that was easy. The book literally mentions three interesting questions that might work as Premise: "What does it truly mean to be free?", "What is the price of freedom?" (and how about: "What price are you willing to pay?"), and "Should living safe be purchased at the cost of freedom?"
All of those sound excellent as Premise (at least if I understand Premise correctly), but I'm still at a loss as how to address them during play.
Let's not forget the theme I added:
Keep Flying: It's a popular quote in the game (it's the name of a chapter, even), and a theme of the TV show. Mal (the captain) feels like his land has been taken from him, and now he only has the sky left. "You can't take the sky from me" from the title song. In the pilot, he says "It's getting awful crowded in my sky." He wants to keep his ship flying, and to do that he needs a crew and money. But money is always a problem (and so is the crew, actually), and he often needs to resort to crime. That's easy when its a victimless crime (smuggling), or the victim is impersonal, evil and/or rich, but what if you find out that's not the real victim of your crime? Can you steal from hospitals, even if they're rich? What if you discover that the goods you were stealing are medicines headed for a poor, sickly community that really needs it? "What does it cost to keep flying?" and "Who are you willing to hurt?" Lots of moral dilemmas here, and moral dilemmas sound like a great way to address this premise.
(On moral dilemmas, I get the impression that the way that phrase is used on the Forge has drifted quite far from its real meaning, which is something I discuss in the previous thread.)
Now I've got two questions:
1. Do I understand correctly what Premise is? Are all the bold questions above suitable as Premise?
2. How do I (or the players) address this in a game?
mcv:
I messed up a BBCode tag in that post. Is there any way I can fix that? This looks kinda awful.
lumpley:
Got the bbcode for you.
Okay, so, a super-quick summary of Story Now play. Straight outta Egri.
Passionate characters, in action according to their passions. They face opposition across the moral line(s) their passions represent. They're fit to take on the opposition, and the opposition is fit to take them on. They escalate, escalate and escalate, facing and going through the inevitable moral dilemmas that escalating against fit opposition across a moral line creates. Ultimately they reach a crisis, they break the opposition or it breaks them, and they resolve the drives of their passions.
(This process can be layered, at different scales: in Firefly on TV, each episode follows this process, and each episode is also an escalatory step in the larger conflicts of the series. When Mal compromises his "stay the hell away from the alliance" for the sake of his "Shepherd Book is part of my crew, so I save his life," that's a moment of resolution in the episode, and a moment of escalation in the series.)
With me?
So:
Quote from: mcv on February 12, 2009, 04:01:36 AM
I guess one interesting Premise could be: "How much of a good guy can you afford to be?" (Am I correct in thinking this sort of question is what Story Now means by "Premise"?)
(You are.) To make "how much of a good guy can you afford to be?" stick as a premise, you'll need (a) characters who are passionately committed to being good guys, in (b) situations where being a good guy is incompatible with surviving financially, with (c) something to force the issue, to bring inescapable urgency to the question.
Quote
Hidden Secrets ... But while those are questions, I don't think they're premises. Or are they?
I don't figure they are either. They don't have much moral dimension, do they? Same with backstory questions like "why don't you fit into normal society?"
Answering these questions is often, not always, part of revealing the characters' passions in action, and they're often, not always, fruitful territory to mine for conflict and opposition - but they don't make passionate characters in conflict with fit opposition across a moral line all by themselves.
Quote
Freedom: The book says: "Freedom and what it truly means to be free is a strong underlying notion that should play a part in any Serenity campaign. What is the price of freedom? Should living safe be purchased at the cost of freedom?" Well, that was easy. The book literally mentions three interesting questions that might work as Premise: "What does it truly mean to be free?", "What is the price of freedom?" (and how about: "What price are you willing to pay?"), and "Should living safe be purchased at the cost of freedom?"
All of those sound excellent as Premise (at least if I understand Premise correctly), but I'm still at a loss as how to address them during play.
The only one of those that really works for me is the last: should living safe be purchased at the cost of freedom. (That's because "should" brings the moral dimension, where "are you willing" leaves it out.) Anyway, to address it in play, you need (a) (b) and (c) above: characters passionately committed to their freedom, in a situation where their living safety is in genuine conflict with their freedom, with some internal or external force that makes the question immediate and urgent.
It's really important, while we're here, to point out that for a premise to work, it has to be a genuinely open question. "We died for our freedom" has to be absolutely and genuinely a possible outcome.
Quote
Let's not forget the theme I added:
Keep Flying: It's a popular quote in the game (it's the name of a chapter, even), and a theme of the TV show. Mal (the captain) feels like his land has been taken from him, and now he only has the sky left. "You can't take the sky from me" from the title song. In the pilot, he says "It's getting awful crowded in my sky." He wants to keep his ship flying, and to do that he needs a crew and money. But money is always a problem (and so is the crew, actually), and he often needs to resort to crime. That's easy when its a victimless crime (smuggling), or the victim is impersonal, evil and/or rich, but what if you find out that's not the real victim of your crime? Can you steal from hospitals, even if they're rich? What if you discover that the goods you were stealing are medicines headed for a poor, sickly community that really needs it? "What does it cost to keep flying?" and "Who are you willing to hurt?" Lots of moral dilemmas here, and moral dilemmas sound like a great way to address this premise.
Yep. Especially "what does it cost you to keep flying," meaning, what must you compromise? ("When you have to hurt someone to keep flying, should you?")
Again, addressing them in play is just a matter of (a) (b) and (c).
You left out loyalty! Firefly is a show all about loyalty. The whole crew is in a constant state of "to whom do you owe your loyalty? What should you compromise to stay loyal? How should you respond to another's disloyalty? To, worse, your own? When your loyalty to one person conflicts with your loyalty to another, what should you do?"
-Vincent
lumpley:
Oh, and whether Serenity the rpg is going to make it easy or hard for you to address any of these, or another premise, in play... I don't know. I suspect hard, possibly prohibitively hard, but that's based on my own prejudice so don't take it too seriously. I haven't read the game.
-Vincent
FredGarber:
Vincent: That's why he's has his own principle... he explains it all.
As a clarification to my Jane Loyalty roll, after I've had two days or so for my subconscious to work on it, you're right. That would take the character out of the player's hands too forcefully. I'd probably come up with some sort of Stat - based challenge, where the GM challenges Jane's Weakness (Loyalty to the crew) by offering him some of his Needs (Violence, Wealth, or both), and Jane's player depends upon his Strengths to give him bonuses to the roll. If I win, he adds to the story my way. If he wins, I narrate it his way. But, that's getting "Thread Drifty," and would belong back in First Thoughts. This is Actual Play. Let me dig out my Serenity rules from the Gaming Closet, and maybe by the time I read it, you might have a question left (before all the other brilliant people here give you better advice than I could ;)
I tried to run a Serenity / Traveller game, and ran RIGHT INTO this too. However, much of my group wanted a sort of game where they were playing out an imaginary Serenity Spin off, and so the game was very much about the "Shared Dream." There was friction over the crew's choices, but people were more interested in Seeing the 'Verse (Exploring Setting) and witty exchanges of banter (Exploring Characters). It was pretty Awesome, but not Narrativist play
Good luck.
-Fred
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