What are "narrative stances"? Narrative stances were first formulated by Kevin Hardwick and Sarah Kahn, and was so useful that it immediately became part of the jargon of my group. These stances are not precisely defined, but these are rough summaries: [A] Actor Stance The Actor Stance is the one in which the player contemplates what she can do to portray her character more effectively to the other participants in the game. That is, you use it when you have already fixed what your character is going to do -- and your concern is primarily portraying her to others. This is different from Author stance because it is not concerned with character development -- instead of writing the character or trying to think as the character, the player consciously trying to portray the character as defined. (i.e. "Michael has a weakness for women, so I'll say pick-up lines to this NPC.") [B] Audience Stance The position from which the player observes, enjoys, and evaluates the game or aspects of it as himself, rather than as his character. This is also a meta-game stance, as it refers to the player's viewing and interpretation of the game, which may be very different from the character's. This stance is the stance from which things like dramatic irony or historical accuracy are judged. It is also the stance adopted whenever the player witnesses an in-game event of which his character is utterly unaware. [C] Author Stance The position from which the player evaluates the game with an eye towards changing it or affecting its development -- either through her character or possibly through the world itself. The player adopts this when consciously writing new parts of her character's background, for example. Usually it is associated with the player watching the development of the game, and trying to spice it up by throwing in new twists (i.e. "Hey, we've just gotten involved with pirates -- why don't I write in that my character's ex-girlfriend was killed in a pirate attack!") Thus, the player is trying to stay consistent with the character as defined, but isn't thinking as the character. [D] In-Character Stance (IC) or Immersion Stance The view of the game from within the inside of the game world and its reality, usually from within the mind of a player character living within that reality. The player is thinking as the character -- he doesn't acknowledge Out-of-Character (OOC) information and tries to concentrate on what the character is experiencing. In theory, acting In-Character becomes second nature -- the player does not look at his character sheet and see “Weakness for Women". Rather, he hears the GM describe a woman and reacts by saying a pass at her. There are a lot of conflicting claims regarding this stance. Everyone agrees that it is difficult to get into. Once there, some people talk about having different emotional responses or different personality types (see below). In general, this is said to take much preparation effort to drop into -- making the character feel real in your mind. It also is fragile: distractions can drop you out, making you uncertain of what the character would "really" do. [?] "Deep In-Character Stance" ("Deep IC") This is a possible deeper version of IC stance, where the player begins to "channel" her character and just be that person. In theory, this is likened to certain mask work or experiences of spiritual possession -- that is, even though the character is not an external entity, the player feels as though something else were taking over, and she is unable to control what the character is doing in the game. Of course, in any RPG, multiple stances may be taken. Often players will have a preference for one stance over another, but still a player will usually switch back and forth. Some claim that this is done quickly and effortlessly -- others claim that certain stances (mostly In-Character) require much time and effort to drop into. Much discussion hinges on how to encourage and facilitate people's preferences in these regards. For those who want to play in the "In-Character"(IC) stance, it is important not to have metagame distractions. They need to be able to get as close as possible to their character's Point-of-View (POV). Campaign Axes Campaign "Axes" are a concept for "campaign classification" developed by Leon von Stauber and Rodney Payne. From the initial concept, Leon had created a large number of axes on which campaigns could be classified: Plot, World, Drama, Realism, Romanticism, Conflict, Authorship, Direction, Mechanism. His article is on the web at: http://www.occam.com/campaign/index.html A limitation of this approach is that it requires diametrically opposed tendencies. The opposites of drama or realism or such are contentious points under discussion. An important distinction concerns "direction"... Directed and Natural: A directed GM is one who makes a conscious effort during game play to guide the campaign development. This doesn't mean that she has a fixed plot which she is sticking to, however. There is also purely off-the-cuff directing: guiding the campaign towards higher drama on the spur of the moment, or perhaps just keeping the action moving. A natural GM is one who simply responds to players actions in a manner most consistent with his conception of the world, and perhaps his understanding of the group contract. He leaves dealing with meta-game issues like drama or pacing up to the group, rather than taking a leadership role. What is the point of all this abstract discussion of rolegaming? Many times the discussion seems purely academic, unrelated to any practical issues of actually running or playing in a game. However, some of us feel that by some analysis of the techniques and styles which occur in RPG's, we can help improve actual game play. Some possibilities: Creating tools to help GMs and players figure out their style differences and reach a compromise (or simply avoid playing together if their styles are too different) Give GMs and players new ideas for methods and style of play, which may help them to stretch out to different and interesting variations. Analyze what techniques work best with what styles -- i.e. pros and cons based on classification. (i.e. If you have Develop-In-Play players, then explicitly announced campaign themes might not be that useful). Allow for easier discussion when different GMs or players are comparing notes, by creating a common vocabulary of how to refer to certain features. Keep up interest level in games. The Threefold Model of Rolegames The Threefold Model is one way of grouping many aspects of "group contracts" into logical categories. Full group contract includes every facet of how the game is played: not just the mechanical rules, but also how scenarios are constructed, what sort of behavior is expected of PCs, how actions not covered by the rules are resolved, allowance of outside distractions, and so forth. The Threefold divides up many of these into categories known as Drama, Game, and Simulation. An important part of the model is recognizing that there are valid different goals for gaming. Many models of RPGs or gamers tend to have derogatory categories of "munchkin," "poser," "rules lawyer," etc. which are contrasted with "true role-players". The Threefold model is intended to promote looking at different styles as just other ways of play. Role-playing games don't simply classify into good and bad. The exact same game which one player enjoys, another might dislike. Rather than say that one or the other has bad taste, it is more useful to try to make sense of patterns of what different players and GMs enjoy. The Threefold is one method of classification, which divides styles up into how much they are Drama-oriented, Game-oriented, and/or Simulation-oriented. What the Threefold applies to is an open question. It is frequently used to look at GM decisions during a session about what should happen in the game-world, and to a lesser extent at adventure design during a campaign. As for other parts of the "game contract", there are different views about its applicability. It may or may not apply player behavior, out-of-game methods, system design, campaign design, or other topics. You might ask whether you are Drama-, Game-, or Simulation-oriented? Most likely, none of the above. Your individual style cannot be pidgeonholed into a single word. More to the point, you probably use a mix of different techniques, and work towards more than one goal. You may tend more towards one corner of the triangle, but you probably value a mix. OK, here are the short definitions: "dramatist": is the style which values how well the in-game action creates a satisfying storyline. Different kinds of stories may be viewed as satisfying, depending on individual tastes, varying from fanciful pulp action to believable character drama. It is the end result of the story which is important. "gamist": is the style which values setting up a fair challenge for the players (as opposed to the PC's). The challenges may be tactical combat, intellectual mysteries, politics, or anything else. The players will try to solve the problems they are presented with, and in turn the GM will make these challenges solvable if they act intelligently within the contract. "simulationist": is the style which values resolving in-game events based solely on game-world considerations, without allowing any meta-game concerns to affect the decision. Thus, a fully simulationist GM will not fudge results to save PC's or to save her plot, or even change facts unknown to the players. Such a GM may use meta-game considerations to decide meta-game issues like who is playing which character, whether to play out a conversation word for word, and so forth, but she will resolve actual in-game events based on what would "really" happen. True, these goals are not constantly at odds. On the short term, a given conflict might happen to be both a fair challenge and realistically resolved. However, every game will have problems, including undramatic bits, unrealistic bits, and unbalanced bits. The Threefold asks about how much comparative effort you put into solving these. Even a perfectly simulationist or gamist campaign will have dramatic bits in them. After all, people will tell stories about things that happened to them in real life, or even about what happened in a chess game they were playing. Similarly, a dramatist campaign will have some conflicts that are a fair challenge for the players, and some events that are realistic. But an equally-skilled gamist GM, who doesn't put effort into the quality of the story, will be able to make better challenges. Similarly, a simulationist GM, who focusses only on in-game resolutions, will be able to make things more "realistic" for that game-world. For more on these matters, see the web pages of J. H. Kim, http://www.darkshire.org/~jhkim/rpg/styles/index.html Back to Table of Contents -- Game! # 9 To Game! List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by George Phillies. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com