ADVOCACY NARRATIVISM
PART FOUR: JUDGEMENT
Disclaimer: What follows is a series of claims about what it takes for Advocacy Narrativism to work. This isn’t the only style of Narrative play, these claims apply only to Advocacy Narrativism. Even then, feel free to disagree, your fun is your own.
Here I reiterate what I previously said with rants and examples thrown in for good measure.
THE MOMENT OF DECISION
Grimbeard the Dwarf, broken and bloody, finally catches up with Thurgan the Oath Breaker. Thurgan is lying on the ground, wounded. Grimbeard raises his axe, ready to kill Thurgan, Thurgan looks at him.
Grimbeard: You murdered my clan, you broke your sacred vows, it’s time to meet your end.
Thurgan: Yes, and I’ll carry the guilt for that always. Yet I did what had to be done, what no one else had the courage for.
Grimbeard reflects on those words. Thinks back to the series of events that led him here. There’s a moment of shame when he realises what Thurgan says is true. He lowers his axe.
Let’s say Grimbeard is a player character. How does the player decide whether to kill Thurgan or not?
He could just think, well I’m a Dwarf and they hate oath breakers, so fuck him, he’s dead.
He could disclaim the decision and flip a coin. In fact he he could even flip a coin then retroactively decide the reasons that Grimbeard does what he does.
He could look on his character sheet, ‘Kill Thurgan’ is listed as a goal. So kill Thurgan it is.
He could decide it makes an interesting story if Grimbeard lets Thurgan live.
Or he could think about Grimbeards interests, think about the journey he’s been on and how that might have changed him, think about whether Thurgan’s words hit home, consider them together and let the choice come. A creative decision made with authenticity based on comparative tensions. ACT.
Now despite how much I’ve banged on about ACT. I don’t think it’s necessary to make Advocacy Narrativism work. It’s my preferred method of reaching a decision. I don’t think roleplay is much fun without it, but it isn’t necessary.
Of the methods listed above. Flipping a coin, or some other randomiser, could work. Making the decision because it’s interesting could work. Although there are perils with each. I’ll explain why that is.
THE REWARD OF ADVOCACY NARRATIVISM
For AN to work there needs to be a clearly established character. I previously stated that as a rule of thumb, you have about a session to get them established and communicate to the group who they are.
Establishment means we have a rough sense of who this guy is. What their hopes and dreams are. How they operate in the world. That sort of thing. This is vital because it’s only then we can ask questions about them.
In a broad sense we wonder ‘what will become of them’. The specific questions we have are related to who the character is and the situation that is unfolding. If the character is selfish, then we wonder whether they’ll remain selfish. Will being selfish stop them getting what they want. Will it help them. If they also love their family we might wonder what would happen if those things came into conflict. What would the character choose, family or self. What consequences would that have.
Seeing these questions answered, is the primary reward of AN. The reason we play.
ACT, for me, is the secondary reward. Which means there are two alternative methods at hand. I’ll list the benefits and perils.
WHAT’S INTERESTING
If you choose based on what is interesting, then you still have to make sure that it’s coherent given the characters interests. If you fail to signal how the decision can still plausibly spring from the characters interests, then two common failure modes emerge.
One: We have no real sense of who the character is. They’re a fountain of drama but we have no human investment in them. The drama is disconnected from events. It clashes with the main agenda of AN, play to answer questions, because we can’t form any sense of who the character is to ask questions in the first place.
Two: Hurried escalation. The other failure mode is just putting the pedal to the metal. The player makes decisions with coherent interests but escalates rapidly and any tension in the plot is lost. In a worst case scenario the escalation occurs too early to get a sense of character and we end up in the same place as failure state one.
On the other hand, playing with an eye to what’s interesting does prevent a game from stalling out. Although it does this at the risk of covering up another issue.
Game stall often occurs because the initial situation just isn’t exciting and conflicted enough. Making ‘dramatic decisions’ is often a cover up for this. This tends to occur when the agenda, answer questions, isn’t clear enough.
RANDOMISER
There’s nothing wrong with this. If flipping a coin makes the decision too binary you could even list several decisions and roll a dice. As long as you can narrate how the situation and the characters interests led to the decision.
Although this both opens up and closes off a class of mechanics. Mechanics that add weight to an ACT decision (see part three), obviously can’t be used here. On the other hand there are a whole load of other mechanics that can take their place.
ACT
While we’re on failure modes. ACT can also fail if you’re not communicating why decisions are made. In a perfect world everyone in a group should ‘just get it’ and pick up on whatever subtle cues and nuances are occurring. In practice it’s often best to be really obvious, narrate internal struggle and give voice to internal monologues and feelings.
CHANGE
The three big questions we have about are a character are. ‘Will they change’ ‘how’ ‘what will cause it’.
Will they change: Means we must have a sense of who they are, otherwise we can’t tell if they’ve changed. It means the character themselves must be capable of change. Let me shout that one more time.
THE CHARACTER YOU PLAY MUST BE CAPABLE OF CHANGE.
How will they change: If indeed they do. What they become is of interest. Do they change from selfish to altruistic. Do they change from selfish to really fucking selfish. A complete unit of play is really answering the question ‘is this irrevocable’. A selfish character might be in flux at the start of play, by the end of play though. The character, and players, are in no doubt, This guy is selfish to the core and will remain so.
What will cause it: This is the whole field of situation and how it escalates. The situation the character is in builds pressure and has consequences. The most obvious thing to look for is how the consequences change the character. If things are working out well then maybe there’s no need to change. Maybe things working out well is what causes it. We play to find out.
INTERESTS AND DIMENSIONALITY
So in the ACT circle I have one arrow for interests and in some of the examples I list a few interests. In actual fact a character probably has hundreds of interests. Too many to list. Most of these are implicit and are based on being a human in a situation. For example:
Anna is a teenage vampire
Some of her interests are:
Going to school, staying in school, making her parents listen to her, keeping up to date with the latest pop bands, making sure she’s liked by everyone, staying out of harms way, not murdering people, not hurting people, retaining high status in the school hierarchy, looking after her car, making sure she’s dressed well, getting to places on time, drinking warm human blood, doing at least average on the academic side of things, staying out of trouble with the law, taking adderall, going to parties, talking with her friends, watching the latest netflix shows, worrying about her future, trying to find out whether Josh likes her, making sure her makeup is applied correctly.
Now we probably don’t much care about a lot of these as players at the table. They’re part of a larger picture that gives us an idea of who Anna is. If we were to start asking questions they would be things like: Can she stay out of trouble with the law, with the whole adderall thing she has going on (and the blood thing)? Will Josh like her? How will she react if he doesn’t? Can she remain being nice to people and retain her place in the school hierarchy? Can she avoid murdering people and drink blood? What will she decide her plans for the future are?
When we reduce the dimensionality of a character it becomes hard to care about them. We might have a few questions but we’re not invested in them.
WHOLE PLAY SEQUENCE
Our purpose in play is to answer questions.
Which emerge during setup and the first session of play.
And are transformed by following the play sequence of:
Character in a situation, ACT, action, consequences.
Until our questions are answered.
CLOSING
So I’m not sure if I’ve actually added anything new to the ongoing conversations about Narrativism. At most I’ve hopefully made one or two things more concrete, it is after all a post about a Narrative play style that doesn’t mention the word story once.
Except for just now.
PART FOUR: JUDGEMENT
Disclaimer: What follows is a series of claims about what it takes for Advocacy Narrativism to work. This isn’t the only style of Narrative play, these claims apply only to Advocacy Narrativism. Even then, feel free to disagree, your fun is your own.
Here I reiterate what I previously said with rants and examples thrown in for good measure.
THE MOMENT OF DECISION
Grimbeard the Dwarf, broken and bloody, finally catches up with Thurgan the Oath Breaker. Thurgan is lying on the ground, wounded. Grimbeard raises his axe, ready to kill Thurgan, Thurgan looks at him.
Grimbeard: You murdered my clan, you broke your sacred vows, it’s time to meet your end.
Thurgan: Yes, and I’ll carry the guilt for that always. Yet I did what had to be done, what no one else had the courage for.
Grimbeard reflects on those words. Thinks back to the series of events that led him here. There’s a moment of shame when he realises what Thurgan says is true. He lowers his axe.
Let’s say Grimbeard is a player character. How does the player decide whether to kill Thurgan or not?
He could just think, well I’m a Dwarf and they hate oath breakers, so fuck him, he’s dead.
He could disclaim the decision and flip a coin. In fact he he could even flip a coin then retroactively decide the reasons that Grimbeard does what he does.
He could look on his character sheet, ‘Kill Thurgan’ is listed as a goal. So kill Thurgan it is.
He could decide it makes an interesting story if Grimbeard lets Thurgan live.
Or he could think about Grimbeards interests, think about the journey he’s been on and how that might have changed him, think about whether Thurgan’s words hit home, consider them together and let the choice come. A creative decision made with authenticity based on comparative tensions. ACT.
Now despite how much I’ve banged on about ACT. I don’t think it’s necessary to make Advocacy Narrativism work. It’s my preferred method of reaching a decision. I don’t think roleplay is much fun without it, but it isn’t necessary.
Of the methods listed above. Flipping a coin, or some other randomiser, could work. Making the decision because it’s interesting could work. Although there are perils with each. I’ll explain why that is.
THE REWARD OF ADVOCACY NARRATIVISM
For AN to work there needs to be a clearly established character. I previously stated that as a rule of thumb, you have about a session to get them established and communicate to the group who they are.
Establishment means we have a rough sense of who this guy is. What their hopes and dreams are. How they operate in the world. That sort of thing. This is vital because it’s only then we can ask questions about them.
In a broad sense we wonder ‘what will become of them’. The specific questions we have are related to who the character is and the situation that is unfolding. If the character is selfish, then we wonder whether they’ll remain selfish. Will being selfish stop them getting what they want. Will it help them. If they also love their family we might wonder what would happen if those things came into conflict. What would the character choose, family or self. What consequences would that have.
Seeing these questions answered, is the primary reward of AN. The reason we play.
ACT, for me, is the secondary reward. Which means there are two alternative methods at hand. I’ll list the benefits and perils.
WHAT’S INTERESTING
If you choose based on what is interesting, then you still have to make sure that it’s coherent given the characters interests. If you fail to signal how the decision can still plausibly spring from the characters interests, then two common failure modes emerge.
One: We have no real sense of who the character is. They’re a fountain of drama but we have no human investment in them. The drama is disconnected from events. It clashes with the main agenda of AN, play to answer questions, because we can’t form any sense of who the character is to ask questions in the first place.
Two: Hurried escalation. The other failure mode is just putting the pedal to the metal. The player makes decisions with coherent interests but escalates rapidly and any tension in the plot is lost. In a worst case scenario the escalation occurs too early to get a sense of character and we end up in the same place as failure state one.
On the other hand, playing with an eye to what’s interesting does prevent a game from stalling out. Although it does this at the risk of covering up another issue.
Game stall often occurs because the initial situation just isn’t exciting and conflicted enough. Making ‘dramatic decisions’ is often a cover up for this. This tends to occur when the agenda, answer questions, isn’t clear enough.
RANDOMISER
There’s nothing wrong with this. If flipping a coin makes the decision too binary you could even list several decisions and roll a dice. As long as you can narrate how the situation and the characters interests led to the decision.
Although this both opens up and closes off a class of mechanics. Mechanics that add weight to an ACT decision (see part three), obviously can’t be used here. On the other hand there are a whole load of other mechanics that can take their place.
ACT
While we’re on failure modes. ACT can also fail if you’re not communicating why decisions are made. In a perfect world everyone in a group should ‘just get it’ and pick up on whatever subtle cues and nuances are occurring. In practice it’s often best to be really obvious, narrate internal struggle and give voice to internal monologues and feelings.
CHANGE
The three big questions we have about are a character are. ‘Will they change’ ‘how’ ‘what will cause it’.
Will they change: Means we must have a sense of who they are, otherwise we can’t tell if they’ve changed. It means the character themselves must be capable of change. Let me shout that one more time.
THE CHARACTER YOU PLAY MUST BE CAPABLE OF CHANGE.
How will they change: If indeed they do. What they become is of interest. Do they change from selfish to altruistic. Do they change from selfish to really fucking selfish. A complete unit of play is really answering the question ‘is this irrevocable’. A selfish character might be in flux at the start of play, by the end of play though. The character, and players, are in no doubt, This guy is selfish to the core and will remain so.
What will cause it: This is the whole field of situation and how it escalates. The situation the character is in builds pressure and has consequences. The most obvious thing to look for is how the consequences change the character. If things are working out well then maybe there’s no need to change. Maybe things working out well is what causes it. We play to find out.
INTERESTS AND DIMENSIONALITY
So in the ACT circle I have one arrow for interests and in some of the examples I list a few interests. In actual fact a character probably has hundreds of interests. Too many to list. Most of these are implicit and are based on being a human in a situation. For example:
Anna is a teenage vampire
Some of her interests are:
Going to school, staying in school, making her parents listen to her, keeping up to date with the latest pop bands, making sure she’s liked by everyone, staying out of harms way, not murdering people, not hurting people, retaining high status in the school hierarchy, looking after her car, making sure she’s dressed well, getting to places on time, drinking warm human blood, doing at least average on the academic side of things, staying out of trouble with the law, taking adderall, going to parties, talking with her friends, watching the latest netflix shows, worrying about her future, trying to find out whether Josh likes her, making sure her makeup is applied correctly.
Now we probably don’t much care about a lot of these as players at the table. They’re part of a larger picture that gives us an idea of who Anna is. If we were to start asking questions they would be things like: Can she stay out of trouble with the law, with the whole adderall thing she has going on (and the blood thing)? Will Josh like her? How will she react if he doesn’t? Can she remain being nice to people and retain her place in the school hierarchy? Can she avoid murdering people and drink blood? What will she decide her plans for the future are?
When we reduce the dimensionality of a character it becomes hard to care about them. We might have a few questions but we’re not invested in them.
WHOLE PLAY SEQUENCE
Our purpose in play is to answer questions.
Which emerge during setup and the first session of play.
And are transformed by following the play sequence of:
Character in a situation, ACT, action, consequences.
Until our questions are answered.
CLOSING
So I’m not sure if I’ve actually added anything new to the ongoing conversations about Narrativism. At most I’ve hopefully made one or two things more concrete, it is after all a post about a Narrative play style that doesn’t mention the word story once.
Except for just now.
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