With the discussion on prep in RPGs winding down, a new question very much entered my wind.
As per the previous, I am looking for what other people think and will start with my own view.
Question: What is considered true within an RPG?
My short answer: Only what happens at the table. GM Secrets, player secrets, etc are only true if they are witnessed at the table.
Longer Answer:
I've developed an empiricists view of these things. The fiction is the thing, and the only things true are what we say are true at the table. Everything else is undefined.
The game is a shared fiction. You can write up 5,000 words on your character backstory and history, but if it doesn't come up in game that it is not true. It isn't false either; it is null.
I've been guilty of this; I've written thousands of words about how a character got here, detailing history and dealings and blah blah blah. And that can be fun; writing is a thing. You can be a writer.
I'll go a step further; if you want to write, then write.
But, writing is inherently not the same as participating in a game. The Game exists between the participants; no one owns it. And no one really owns the experience of a particular character, just how that character reacts to situations presented in the game.
Those secrets, those pages, those ideas that are held to ones self? They aren't the game. And they are only true in the game if they are revealed at the table. Oh, your elf is a princess? AWESOME. oh, your elf is a princess in your mind but nothing you've ever done or alluded to says the elf is a princess? Sorry, no.
That elf ain't a princess, because you have failed to show it.
Also, very similarly, the GM's plans, ideas, traps and issues? Those also do not exist until they are portrayed. Prep isn't canon, fronts aren't canon. The only thing that is canon is the table.
That's my view; the only thing that is canon is the shared experience between the players.
I am open to being convinced of the opposite. I've a feeling only the GM-referenced part will be particularly controversial.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hmm. I'm going to split a hair here, and note that what is not said - what is carefully avoided - may have as much impact on gameplay as what is said. Let's say that I'm playing a pretty pretty elf princess, don't judge me, this is my example. Three sessions in, you can tell that I get uncomfortable whenever royalty comes up, I redirect questions about my station, and so on. The campaign ends before I reveal exactly what my deal was. Did I play an elf princess, or did I play a nonsensical character?
ReplyDeleteBrandes Stoddard Interesting example!
ReplyDeleteFirst: There is to be no judgement for playing a pretty pretty elf princess. Playing a character similar to Arwen or Galadriel or any other elf princess is awesome.
In this example, I think you have pushed towards there being something related to station that matters. I think the players probably know by now that station matters to you, in a way that is not defined.
And its that undefined way that is so important. Maybe you were playing an elf princess, or maybe you were playing an elf duchess who wants a few decades away from it all. We don't know.
And, I'd hold, it is undefined within the game world. It is null; we just don't know.
That is, there is no way to give a truth value to the statement "Brandes played a pretty pretty elf princess". It is neither true nor false.
Does that make any sense?
Editting to add: Finding those null values is part of what we do during play, and seek to have them resolved. The GM, the other players, and you all have a responsibility to be on the lookout for those and figure 'em out.
Okay, that makes sense. My next question: how many people at the table have to share an understanding for a fact to be true? In my example, obviously I know it's true, and if it's a GMed game, I think it's definitely only true if the GM also knows. (That is, I think there's no point in calling it a GMed game if I blindside the GM, three sessions in, with "by the way, I never told you, but I'm an elf princess of Lothlorien.") It's another matter if I realize that something would be cool three sessions in, and it hasn't been overtly contradicted, so I talk to the GM and we agree that I'm a pretty pretty elf princess now, and secretly was all along.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong. I've had intensely frustrating experiences with a GM or a fellow PC revealing something after the campaign's end that totally undermines all of my rational-at-the-time choices intersecting with that thing. My issue, of course, was that the other person was changing my understanding of my own character's actions after it was too late to change the story back in a direction I liked.
My preference is that things are only true once they hit the table, but I'm aware there are other playstyles (like, most of them) where (especially GM) secrets are true and important. They can be used productively, but I think the longer something is true without being said at the table, the greater the chance is it doesn't get used or winds up getting used poorly
ReplyDeleteI wrote an essay about my feelings on this: http://www.1000d4.com/2013/03/31/what-defines-reality-at-the-rpg-table/
ReplyDeleteI'll also add that smart game design can make any of my preferences nullified. I can easily imagine people creating fun systems around creating and revealing and verifying secrets.
ReplyDeleteOh, heck yeah.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the GM must know for it to be true, in a game with a single GM. In a GMless or GMfull game, that gets more complicated.
But maybe that complication sheds light, rather than making it harder to understand. In a game of Fiasco, I'd say something is only true if it happens in a scene. In a game of Dream Askew, I'd say much the same. That is, everyone knows - or at least, everyone has had an opportunity to know. if they walk away or have other issues of engagement, that's different.
So, the degree to which players need to know things for it to be true seems proportional to the degree to which they are the GM. And what exactly that means.
That is, if players are "just" players and have no ownership of the shared world, then they don't need to know stuff for it to be true. That's not the sort of game I usually play -- or that I really prefer -- where we've got more shared ownership. In those games, basically every player ought to know something for it to be true true.
Even most traditional GM games afford players agency about their characters (like it would be out of line for a GM to rewrite your backstory once you told the group about it)
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteEva Schiffer Agreed.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago, I was playing a mage. I bowed out of later sessions of the game because reasons. The GM decided that my mage -- who i felt some degree of ownership over -- become a Maurader. For those that don't know Mage, these are the very bad guys. Very very bad.
I told him that wasn't really OK, and tried to explain why. It felt like a violation, even though I had left the game. Part of why it seemed like a violation was it went against the things I believed about the character, which had never been said at table.
Its a weird example. I'm pretty sure we were both in the wrong, and it certainly goes against the grain of what I try to do with characters that need to bow out -- make it graceful!
Yeah, this is the point at which differences in preferred playstyles stop me from agreeing with you further. I am hugely motivated by exploration and interest in secrets and world-lore. I want agency in what happens after the start of play, but not shared-world authorship. The illusion of secrets and mysteries is always at the forefront of my interest, both investigating as a player and revealing as a GM.
ReplyDeleteIt's abundantly clear from that paragraph that I come from a gaming community that has no idea what this GM-less/-full movement in games is about. =)
Differences are awesome! They help me better understand what I find important -- and maybe you do the same?
ReplyDeleteDo me a favor, Brandes Stoddard , look up either Fiasco or Dream Askew and see if the idea reads like it has any merit for you.
William Nichols The mage thing... is not so ok. I generally talked to players about things that were related to their character's choices (whether they were there or not). And that's not to say I didn't do slightly skeevy things (like recruiting a player to turn his character into a brainwashed villain) but I tried not to do them heavy handedly.
ReplyDeleteIt's one of the reasons I was so terrified when I started playing pre-written LARPs: you get no say in who your character is or was, only what you do at the game. I've since mostly gotten over that, but I'm still picky about which games I'll play because there's a lot of stuff I would not enjoy portraying.
I've got a copy of Fiasco about twelve inches behind me, but I haven't made time to play it yet. My friends who have played it had the highest of praise for it, fans of the Coen brothers as they are. ;)
ReplyDeleteI do indeed enjoy talking to people from contrasting gaming communities and traditions! In this conversation, I am especially grateful for the absence of one-true-wayism, which so often interferes.
Eva Schiffer I agree! And yeah, that's a hard thing in larps. Its a hard thing in any set piece game, and I know that to explore certain issues, you want to ensure a specific angle.
ReplyDeleteIn some ways, it is a magnification of the playbooks of AW and its ilk; a lot of the character design work is already done for you, especially as compared to dnd.
Brandes Stoddard Thanks! I'll try to avoid any one true nonsense. Its an easy trap to fall into, but I try to do these little discussions when I legit want to come to better understanding. I hope you stick around!
ReplyDeleteI'm also not sure how to explain the experience of Fiasco or other such non-GM or everybody-is-a-GM games. It'd be like explaining red to someone who has only seen blue; neither is worse or better, but its damned hard to explain. Give that, or Dream Askew, or even the odder other pbta games a try sometime!
[ I'm off to run and feel human again. I live in DC, and we've had a very bad time with our mass transit this week. Being a person is getting hard. ]
ReplyDeleteEva Schiffer Your article is really great, which I don';t think I said before.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking; in some pbta games, there's a way to do the retroactive move. I think in AW, there's some move that's like "When you had something all along, roll +barter spent ... ", and Gumshoe has its preparation stat. I've never known DnD to have this.
In all of these, you can embrace that tension and find a system way to handle it. I really like that, and think it is a lot of what the system should be doing; find a tension at the table, and give me some rules around it.
What do you think?
Eva Schiffer -- thank you for the article. It's incisive and covers good ground.
ReplyDeleteI especially liked the note about secrecy, and the power difference between GM-held secrets and player-held secrets -- and, ironically, why I prefer pre-written larps to bring-your-own-character larps. I could have some confidence that if I had a secret, desire, ability, it would be reflected and complemented by something in the world around me.
I also started in theater, where you build your character starting with what they say and do and have said about them, and as the actor its your job to discover and convincingly portray the psychology that leads to those outcomes.
ReplyDeleteForeshadowing and mysteries create a whole extra topic of implied truths.
If, to go back to the pretty pretty elven princess example, you've made it clear that your character is uncomfortable near royalty, carefully conceals a special birthmark, and has a voice that charms birds down from the trees -- and we also know that the elven royal line can speak the tongues of birds and beasts and all have a distinctive familial birthmark -- we've got some things that are strongly implied to be true.
If we meet the queen (who looks just like you...) and she doesn't bat an eye at your presence...is that fnoor? Inconsistency? If we notice that and nothing comes of it, I'd feel disappointed.
This gets more complicated when some people think the implications are obvious but others don't -- or disagree about what is "obviously" implied.
> or disagree about what is "obviously" implied.
ReplyDeleteHeck yeah! This is a fascinating space (all of it, but this part!), but the possibility of multiple truths given the same facts is fascinating.
Perhaps the player thinks his PC the pretty elven princess is the King's daughter.
Perhaps the GM thinks all elves look alike.
Maybe another player thinks the pretty elven princess is a lich, using a glamor and the matriarch of the elven queendom.
All of these are possible! Its a fascinating space where the same information can suggest multiple explanations.
Since I wrote that article I've played in an extended Leverage game, and that made very good use of "flashbacks" that give you a limited ability to do retroactive stuff to get the story to a satisfying conclusion. I definitely think it's an area where a system with some mechanical support for nonchronological events can be awesome. :)
ReplyDeleteEva Schiffer Yeah, I think that stuff is important. If the characters are competent, or even hyper competent, then you need to ensure they come across that way in the fiction. Players aren't spies -- usually -- and separation my ability to come up with an op from my characters seems a relevant part of game design.
ReplyDelete