Establishing Premise in Serenity RPG
mcv:
Quote from: lumpley on February 12, 2009, 06:51:46 AM
Got the bbcode for you.
Thanks for that.
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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.
I've seen references to Egri before here. I understand he's pretty important around here, so I did some reading. And my impression is that even the Egri premise is not quite the same thing as a Story Now premise, although it's closer. Where a movie premise is a short synopsis (for example, for Romeo and Julia: "Forbidden love between boy and girl ends in death"), te Egri premise is about the underlying message that the story tries to deliver to the audience ("Love defies even death"), whereas the Story Now premise is an underlying question, rather than a message. Perhaps each possible answer to that question could be an Egri message, I suppose.
But I think I get your point. Whatever the premise is, it needs to deal with something that the characters care about. And then the GM threatens it in a way that the characters can deal with, and you see what happens. And then you do it again, but you up the ante. And then again and again, until something snaps.
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(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.)
And that might be an interesting example to follow in a Story Now campaign. Each session needs its own resolution, but each resolution is also an escalating step in a bigger story. And I've got the feeling that bigger story could be addressing a completely different premise, is that correct? In fact, would it be possible to have several different premises relevant to the campaign, and address a different one each session? Or would that be too messy?
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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?"
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.
That's good to keep in mind. With players used to Sim or Gam, I guess it's easy to end up with characters who are not really passionate about the issue addressed by the premise. Some of my players might answer up front: "Not a lot, really." or: "If there's profit in it." which is of course something that needs to be prevented. The up front part, at least. If during play they decide that being a good guy is just too hard in this setting, then I suppose that's their answer. Then I need to lower the bar, to figure out how low their standards for being a good guy really are. That's (a).
(b) is something that the GM needs to take care of. Shouldn't be too hard, I suppose. Firefly is full of situations where they need to choose between making money or doing what's right. Still, it's important to keep that conflict in mind. It's too easy to screw them over financially (or otherwise) without them having any choice in it, or to let them be heroes without it really costing them anything. I think "winning" means they need to sacrifice something, whatever the win is. The one thing I'm worried about here, is how much of a sacrifice a financial sacrifice really is. Fully detailing the financial situation of the crew of a tramp freighter can be some serious bookkeeping, which goes way over to the number-crunching simulationist side. I've done this in WFRP's Death On The Reik campaign, and tried to avoid it in our recent GURPS Traveller debacle, but the end result of that was that they had no idea what their financial situation was, and they had to take it on faith from me that they'd be short if they chose A, but would make their monthly payments in they chose B. Not satisfying. I think Serenity has some rules about this, so I hope they're easy and lightweight enough that it gives the players a better feel about their finances without breaking out the spreadsheets.
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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.
I do think they're important questions to consider, however. They're more personal, less about decisions, and not much of a topic for discussions among the characters, but they're still issues that could make for nice backstory if answered in advance (which would be acceptable, since they're not premise), or could add interesting flavour by addressing them during play. Maybe they're only decoration, but they can be pretty anyway. And for a simulationist, the "not fitting into society" might even be necessary to explain why they prefer travelling around in a rust bucket spaceship.
Also, these issues could still be related to something the character is passionate about. Maybe he wants to keep his secret, for example (although I don't really like that, I think -- finding answers to mysteries is more fun than keeping them secret). And in Firefly, Mal is still passionate about the cause for Independence, which is why he doesn't fit into Alliance-controlled society. So there's still options for conflict here.
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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.
I'm not sure if safety is the most interesting conflict for freedom here. Adventurers tend to have very little regard for it. But freedom could still cost them something else: maybe they could get a profitable job working for the alliance. Would they do it? (In Earthdawn, the players hate running errants for Dragons, exactly because it does tend to cost them their freedom.) Or it could be brought into conflict with other things they're passionate about. What if freedom conflicts with heroism? Poor, desperate people really, really need their help, and they're the only ones who can help, but they were actually in the middle of something else entirely, and don't really want to be stuck on a moon for weeks in order to help people for no profit.
Now I suddenly find myself wondering if it's really about answering deep questions, and not simply about characters having different things they care about and making them choose between them? That's pretty much your basic, classic moral dilemma, right? Except that morality is about ethics, not passions. Hm....
I need to think about that one.
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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.
But it's not good for the longevity of the campaign. But perhaps having a dramatic ending is better than having it bleed to death, as so often happens.
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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?"
Or when it conflicts with one of your other passions? Because that's the fun part, isn't it? Each character has a number of passions, and they all conflict. For Jayne, for example, both money and safety often trump loyalty. For Mal, on the other hand, loyalty trumps just about anything else. Zoe is I think the only one with conflicting loyalties: to her husband and to her captain (who would both be player characters if it was a RPG, so I'm not sure how that would work out in actual play).
On the one hand, I've got lots of good ideas now, but on the other, I've got a nagging feeling that I'm dilluting my new found understanding of what Story Now is. On the gripping hand: does it matter? The most important issue is that we get exciting play where we deal with issues that the characters care about.
Callan S.:
Hi mcv,
Is there anything that...scares you about your own life? It's a bit of a private question - I'm asking merely to raise the idea rather than asking for an answer here. For example, a hard one is, what if I conceive a child and it has down syndrome? Would I get an abortion?
I imagine there's a short shocked silence to that one from all reading, but that's exactly my point - I'm not bringing up some fantasy, far away moral dilemma. If it was too much, just dismiss me as another internet weirdo and skip the rest of the post, that's ok.
With some things that scare you, perhaps you've made your choice. But with other scary things, you may have doubts about how to deal with it (perhaps even as you deal with it a certain way in real life).
Can you imagine exploring those doubts in a game? Perhaps draping it in metaphor and space ships, to make it less horrifically close to home? But basically it's those doubts actually explored.
I don't definately know myself if that's to do with the definition of nar. But I do tend to think that pure fantasy moral dilemmas that are harmoginised and sealed off from what shares the shit out of you probably will have you indeed dilute your understanding of story now.
JB:
Wow. I think Vincent covered the 'themes' so I'll keep my comments there to a minimum.
I'd second the idea that some of the 'themes' in the Serenity text aren't 'Themes' or Premises in the specific sense that we're using the word, but are more like motifs or tropes. They're not using the word to mean something as specific as we are here though, and the Premises have been identified, so no problems there.
I'd also emphasize that you absolutely must give the players the authority to decide what side of the issue they come down on, and the power to influence how they addresses that issue. You and the whole group needs to be open to the players answering 'yes' OR 'no' to the 'premise question' and for them to go into tragedy OR triumph to make their argument. Some of that can be established before you start playing, but some of it is going to have to come from the play itself.
Got a game of my own to get to, so I'll have to leave off here. I'll try to get an analysis of the Serenity RPG up tomorrow, along with what I see as the potential stumbling blocks to using it as a vehicle for Story Now, as well as some thoughts on what you might do to get around those. I'm also not convinced it's worth the effort, but I really sympathize with your situation so... Onward!
I also see there's a couple of new posts up since I read through this thread earlier, so my apologies for any confusion if this is crossposted.
Cheers,
J
Marshall Burns:
MCV, I want so much to say, "Use all the cool setting stuff from your Serenity RPG book (because it is pretty damn cool), and use my game The Rustbelt with the Frontier Suns mod included therein for everything else," because it presents so damn clearly a particular take on the Firefly thing (i.e. my particular take on the coolest, most cutting Premise that can be derived from it), with a built-to-specs system for that take. Because, even if it isn't your take, or a take you like, I think you'd find it helpful. But the damned thing isn't ready yet. That, and I'd look like a self-promoting ass. Arrrg.
-Marshall
Marshall Burns:
Oh, hell, lemme see what I can do anyway.
Okay, so, this particular take on the Firefly thing revolves around the Black. Right, a colloquialism for the vast emptiness of space, but here also a metaphor for isolation. This being roleplaying we're talking about, we can treat metaphor as something that acts and has an agenda and does shit to people. So, we explore what isolation does to people. Isolation, as in how the outer planets are isolated from the central planets, and what that did to those outer planets and the people living on them, and what that allows the Alliance to do to the folks on the outer planets as the distance diminishes their apparent humanity. Isolation, as in my planet is separated from yours by space, so we're different and apart from each other. Isolation, as in the only connection between your ship and my ship is a video screen that I can turn off if I want, and doing so will make it a lot easier for me to kill your ship for food and fuel. Isolation, as in I'm just looking out for me and mine, and I don't have time or energy to take up for you too. Isolation, as in "She's wanted by the Feds; they'll give me money if I turn her in; if I protect her, I'm in danger; hmm...."
For my money, this grabs everything in the Firefly canon, from Train Job to the movie.
By treating the Black as if it were a character, you can make it work to isolate and divide people and thus open up the door for desperate and despicable behavior. You can do things like have it take away resources so that people might have to do something unsavory or despicable to get by; you can put people in a situation where a despicable, self-serving, and even murderous act can go unpunished (or seems like it can); you can drive wedges between friends, by having the pressure of all the hardship, desperation, and isolation hammer on their nerves until they lash out at each other. There's lots of tricks. But the thing is, you give them opportunity to be horrible, and good reason to be horrible, and then watch to see if they act horribly to get by, or nobly despite the cost, or manage to find a balance somehow. And then you challenge their choice. And re-challenge it. And so on.
I'm not good at stating Premises, but there's one in there. With considerable houseruling, you can do it with Serenity RPG. My consternation above is based on the fact that The Rustbelt + "Frontier Suns" mod is custom-made for this very thing (right down to having rules for the Black acting as a character).
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