Post originally by Zoran Bekric at 2004-06-16 18:52:56
Converted from Phorums BB System



Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
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<i>After reading through your post, I think the main problem with our discussion thus far has been a sort of "I don't think that means what you think it means" situation, both ways.</i>
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That may well be the case. Especially since I read the forum attached to the recent review of <i>Universalis</i> in which people were advocating deliberately using the term "roleplaying game" to describe things that clearly aren't roleplaying games. It makes me wonder how many other things have been deliberately mislabelled.

We're not just dealing with honest misunderstandings here. Some people seem to be intentionally muddying the waters for their own purposes. Attempts at honest communication always suffer in such circumstances.


(I've trimmed various things we agree on)


Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
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<i>Honestly, I've been doing it for two years now, and things are only /improving/.
I'm not sure where the problems you reference would be coming from, beyond those we've talked about already: conflicts of centrality (regarding who is getting attention) and focus of play (regarding what sorts of play are being encouraged and how they cooperate or fail to).</i>
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I'd say the main source of the problems is that players don't think in group terms. They think only in terms of their own character and what would be fun for them.

For awhile I thought that might be a product of game experience. That is, players who had also been a GM at some point would have a better appreciation for the group and would try to come up with things that would involve the other player characters as well as their own, while players who had only every been players wouldn't. While there was some correlation, it actually seemed to work the other way around. Those who had some feeling for the group were more likely to end up volunteering to act as a GM. Just getting players to occasionally act as a GM didn't install any feeling for the group if it wasn't already there.

In economic terms, I'd say the core problem is an example of the Tragedy of the Commons. You may know this already, but just in case you don't, the term comes from the old custom where some land was held in common and on which all the members of a village could graze their sheep or cattle. The rational thing for each herd-owner to do in such a situation is to graze as many of their animals on the common as they could, thus maximising their own benefit, but the consequence of such behaviour on the part of all (or even most) of the herd-owners was to destroy the communal resource. Hence, the tragedy.

Roleplaying games are somewhat similar. Each player acts to maximise their own enjoyment -- often unconsciously and in complete innocence, I'm not suggesting any sort of maliciousness here -- but the net effect of all players behaving that way is to destroy the game for everyone.

Some players will display a sort of enlightened self-interest and deliberately work other player characters into their actions, reasoning that it's better to diminish their immediate enjoyment by accommodating others and have the game continue than to maximise their enjoyment and have the game implode. Or, perhaps, part of the pleasure for some players comes from involving others. Whatever the case, such players are in the minority. Most players act in a relatively straightforward manner to maximise their own pleasure.

As a consequence, one of the duties of the GM is to run a sort of quota system, limiting each player's desires so as to keep the group as a whole viable. Most players (whether they are of the enlightened self-interest type or not) will recognise that's what the GM is doing and will co-operate. It's a classic example of the GM acting as the chair of a meeting.

Of course, this duty is a particularly thankless one, since each player will experience it only as a thwarting of their own personal desires and will resent it to an extent. But that's the way it works.


Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
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(trim description)
<i>Now, my problem is that, traditionally, all this stuff gets submitted to the GM...who then proceeds to almost completely ignore it.

We have a game about a couple guys trying to find the character's sister...and the GM then proceeds to involve them in an galactic war, with nasty corporation types on their trail, and has these visions of how they're supposed to be the heroes who eventually topple the great evil responsible and bring peace back.

But that's not why those characters were created at all. The whole background story is just a minor blip on the radar in such an event.

For another case, take my barbarian character, now run him through the "Forge of Fury" module for 3E. Sure, I can MAKE him work with that adventure, coming up with some reason why he might be choosing to oust those orcs and get to the weapon hoard and such, but the real story is still his conflict with his rival, his tribe, and his sister, and all that stuff ends up being "just filler" rather than the /reason/ for (or focus of) play.

Does that make sense?
(Yes, I'm aware a GM can "weave those elements into his plot" -- but that's what I'm talking about being less fulfilling than taking the characters and creating the plot from/to be about their motivations and backgrounds).</i>
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Okay, this is where our experiences differ.

In my experience, if a player creates a character who is, let's say, trying to restore his sister's honour, that's something that matters to only that character. Most (often *all*) the other player characters don't care one way or the other about the sister's honour.

When I'm GMing, I run a world-centred game that's pretty reactive. That is, if the player characters decide to ignore all the plot hooks about going to the west to find the lost elven sword to defeat the growing capital-E Evil and instead decide to head south to try and restore the sister's honour, what I will end up running is the journey to the south. I may be odd in this regard, but I actually find being forced to ad lib in such circumstances to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of gaming. It's like improvisational jazz.

The question is: why would all the player characters decide to do that?

The best answer in my experience is because all the player characters are friends. The other characters may not care about what happens to the sister, but they do care about her brother and, since the sister's fate is important to him, it becomes important to them. Underneath the friendship is an expectation of reciprocation. Eventually, each player feels that the brother will return the favour and help their character achieve one of their goals, even if it's something that the brother doesn't personally care about.

There's nothing wrong with this sort of approach. It's the way many groups in real-life function and it's possible to build a solid long-term campaign out of it.

But what if the player character's aren't friends? What if two player characters decide to head south to try and restore the sister's honour, two others are exiled elven princes who decide to head west to join the elven civil war to ensure the right side wins and they get restored to their positions and the fifth player decides to stay put in the town where the game began, marry the local tavern owner and become a big wheel in local politics? Then the game splits into three strands.

I've run such games, bouncing between threads. The players find them very enjoyable because each strand deals with whatever it is that's most important to their character, so it feels "right". The characters are not off on some adventure with their backstory only a blip on the radar, the adventure flows directly out of their backstory and motivations.

However, rather than being world-centred, the game becomes player-centred. Since the GM is bouncing between strands, they are "on" all the time, while each player is on only part of the time. At the end of the session, the GM is mentally, emotionally and creatively exhausted. In my case, after about three months I'd have to declare a short sabbatical to recharge my mental batteries and after about three years (with sabbaticals) I'd just end the game no matter where the various characters were in their personal narratives because I just couldn't sustain it any longer. The tragedy of the commons -- with the GM as the commons.

Thus, the problem with player-centred games that I see is:
individual goals leads to
split parties leads to
separate narrative threads leads to
GM being on all the time while players are on only some of the time leads to
creative exhaustion leads to
end of the game.


Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
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<i>I agree...to a certain extent. But "Heroic Fantasy" and "Epic Fantasy" don't mean much in /focused/ character design. They HELP, assuredly, but the problem often remains that the characters and the events don't mesh regarding their importance to the characters/interest to the players.</i>
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This is true. But I feel that the genres that have done well in RPGing are those that lend themselves to broad motivations: defeating evil, fighting crime, investigating odd mysteries, gaining power and wealth. Genres which depend on more subtle and nuanced motivations run into the problem you note -- it's harder for players to come up with characters that will fit the game being played.

My personal response has been to create characters during play. I start with a sheet full of numbers -- what most RPG character creation is actually designed to produce -- and then figure out who the character is and what they want as I play them. Such characters generally fit much better into the world they are a part of than characters I've been forced to figure out before play -- by having to write a detailed background or life history, for example -- who often seem out of place or visitors from a parallel universe. Certainly not part of the world the GM is presenting.

For all that I distinguish between stories and games, I find such an approach more story-like. After all, I don't know anything about Frodo at the beginning of <i>Lord of the Rings.</i> I only learn about him as I read the book and see how he acts and reacts. Same with the characters I play in a game. At the beginning I really don't know anything about them, I only learn about them through play. This may sound strange, since I'm the one playing them, but some characters have surprised me with some of their actions. And a few times it's only been after months of play that I suddenly realise what it is that the character really wants and why they act the way they do.

Of course, such an approach may not be for everyone, but I've found that it pretty consistently results in characters who fit the games they're in for me.


Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
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<i>But...my barbarian still isn't invested in the scenario: he's all about defeating his rival, and restoring his sister's honor, and regain his tribal status. There's still a disconnect between point of the game and the point of his character, even though the genres match now.</i>
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What would your barbarian character be invested in? And why would that matter to any of the other player characters?

The problem with creating personal motivations for characters is that those motivations rarely fit together. There's no thematic unity to them. Instead of the members of the Fellowship of the Ring being defined by their different reactions and responses to the same thing -- the temptation of the One Ring -- you end up with the mishmash of motivations I described in my initial post above.

Perhaps that's another reason why I like to leave my characters vague at the beginning of play. Their defining traits end up being how they respond to and feel about events in the game rather than how they feel about stuff that happened before play. Perhaps that's also why they seem to fit the world of the game better; they're thematically bound to it.

I'm just musing out loud here -- so don't take this as any more than an idle suggestion -- but perhaps your problem is that you're trying to predefine your character too much. And, in dealing with difficulties, you're trying to predefine them more and more, which only makes the problem worse. Perhaps you need to adopt a more Zen-like approach, and just go with the flow, improvising the character in response to what the game throws at you. Just a suggestion.


Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
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<i>I agree! But I find that genre knowledge is just one of the necessary elements.
For example, "Star Wars" has a whole set of expectations about plotlines that goes with it...it isn't just a genre. You know, for example, that the game will be about playing Rebels trying to overthrow the rule of the Empire.

So it isn't /just/ genre-agreement or knowledge that is important, but general play-direction as well.

Now, you won't KNOW the plots or actual events or revelations, just the general intention of things, so there's a comparable amount of mystery to a game where such things aren't pre-indicated, and more investment by players.</i>
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Actually I would contend that expectations about plot-lines is a large part of what genre-knowledge is. After all, genre is primarily used as a commercial tool to help sell stories. By labelling a certain story as part of particular genre, you're telling potential readers/viewers basically what the story's about. They don't know all the details, but they know roughly what the story will be like.

If a game is described as being <i>Star Wars</i> (or what would now be called <i>Rebellion Era Star Wars)</i> and 95% of the examples of that genre feature Rebels trying overthrow the Empire, then I think the expectation that the game would involve Rebels trying to overthrow the Empire is pretty solid. And expectations that the game would be about something else are on very thin ice.

As I said, genres are primarily defined by the examples of the genre. When discussing a genre, it's best if everyone points to specific examples of works that show the particular combination of plot-lines, character types, mood, atmosphere, attitude and approach they have in mind. The game will not reproduce any example exactly -- and it's not intended to -- but if everyone starts with a shared understanding of the intent, it's much more likely they will end up creating characters that will end up playing in the same ballpark, if not exactly on the same team.


Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
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<i>Not necessarily. There's a fair amount of negotiation that has to occur at all stages, and a willingness to rewrite previous stages if necessary as the shared vision becomes more focused.

Further, while Spiritual Attributes can be agreed on after this process, they will still define what the game is about, by providing the story-line, the adventure, if you will, that the player wants the character to take part in. That is, SAs can be tailored according to genre, and still be used to focus the actual direction (the events -- perhaps even "defining events") of play.

Does that make sense?</i>
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Yes and no. As others have pointed out, it's easy enough to do this without Spiritual Attributes and I've been in games in which it has been done without Spiritual Attributes, so I'm not sure why they are considered so innovative and revolutionary.

The whole process of negotiation and a willingness to rewrite previous stages sounds an awful lot like a story conference to me and, as I said to Ralph Mazza, since story conferences are part of what I do for a living, I'm not particularly interested in doing more of them as part (or as the whole) of a hobby. This may just be something we agree to differ on.


Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
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<i>If the GM throws a plot out about an evil ring that needs to be destroyed to save the free peoples of the world...well, suddenly the character is completely out of his element. There's no reason to play him, because his reason is gone. So the SAs say to the GM, "Hey, buddy, this is what my character is about! This is what his adventures are about!" and the GM can make adventures that are about that.</i>
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And these adventures will involve the other player characters how? How will their individual reasons be related to this character's concerns?

Perhaps the problem here is the example you offered. I just don't see why any other character would be all that concerned about your barbarian character's preoccupations with banishment from his tribe, a rival warrior, the disgrace of his sister, etc. These all sound like very personal concerns to me. Could you explain to me how the other player characters relate to these concerns? Or offer a different example?


Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
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<i>Yes, I strongly disagree with this position.
Refer to the GNS model's "Narrativism" mode for my reasoning why I find you can achieve more than just a series of events with gaming: that you can choose to focus upon a Premise and ultimately through focusing upon that Premise, achieve a theme. I don't claim, however, that every Narrativist game is a masterwork of literary quality, or even "good" -- they range the spectrum from "well, that just fizzled and crapped" to "wow."</i>
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That would be from the Forge, correct?

Sorry, I have very little time for the ramblings there. I checked them out a while ago and the first thing I ran across was a thread which used GNS theory to explain why <i>Call of Cthulhu</i> was universally hated. When some people contributing to the thread started pointing out that <i>CoC</i> enjoyed a steady, if not great, popularity and so wasn't "universally hated", Ron Edwards -- who I gather is the originator of GNS -- stepped in to say that he didn't think that the actual status of <i>Call of Cthulhu's</i> popularity was all that germane to the analysis. This established GNS as a theory that was not willing to be tested against reality -- and the proper name for that sort of "theory" is "ideology." I'm not interested in any model whose conclusions can't be tested against experience. It's not about any sort of truth, it ends up just being about believers, non-believers and various flavours of heretic.

Beyond that, when you say "focus upon a Premise", that sounds very much like something out of the Leavisite Tradition. I'm guessing that "Premise" would be a question or issue that has moral weight and which characters have to make a choice about -- hence the capital-P in "Premise. Is that right? If so, then it's definitely part of the Leavisite Tradition and dates back to the 1930s and 40s. It also has the interesting consequence of creating a definition of "story" that excludes at least 75% of all the stories ever written -- but then the Leavisite Tradition was always much more concerned with establishing a canon than dealing with the majority of material actually published or screened. Prescription rather than description. Another model that has very little do with reality.

If I'm wrong and you're using "premise" in its more common sense of a situation or proposition from which logical inferences flow, then please let me know. Though, if that's the case, the idea that a game should "focus upon a Premise" would seem to be rather self-evident. Still, sometimes you need to state the obvious.

As it is, I may go off and check out this essay on Narrativism. There may well be something interesting there.


Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
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<i>Unfortunately, I can currently find no working link to the Turku manifesto. It appears to have disappeared from the web. The only address I can find for it was http://live.roolipeli.net/turku/school/ which returns a "page cannot be displayed" browser error. You should/may be able to use http://www.archive.org to pull up an archived copy of the site and the manifesto, however -- if you're at all interested in working yourself up into a frothing fit of hysterics.</i>
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Maybe the authors had a fit of common sense and just withdrew the manifesto? In an ideal world, they would have thought better of it before putting up such a manifesto -- and doesn't the term "manifesto" just scream pretentiousness? There have been a few artistic groups in my home city who have issued artistic "manifestos" -- the Burning Penguin poetry group back in the 1960s, the Burning Bride painting group in the 1970s -- and the members always came across as wankers.

Still, if those who issued the manifesto have learned from their mistakes and withdrawn it, that's a sign of progress, right?


Raven Daegmorgan wrote:
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<i>Basically, we agree with each other, and are just missing the details, as we're using our terms differently and assuming game play behaviors beyond those terms based on those assumptions. I think we're making progress towards the middle here, however.</i>
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I agree. We are making progress.

Regards,

Zoran