ADVOCACY NARRATIVISM



PART ONE: 
THE BASICS

This is a series about a style of play in tabletop rpgs, Advocacy Narrativism, AN for short. It details the why and how of the style, with most of its emphasis being on how players make character decisions.

At it’s most simple all AN really says is:

When making a decision for your character.
Think about what they would want.
Think how the situation at hand might change that.
Be open to that change.
Make the decision.

A lot of the ideas below are expressed in far more eloquent ways by.

Jesse Burneko
https://playpassionately.wordpress.com/

Christopher Kubasik

What follows is at most a footnote to the work they’ve already done.



THE QUESTION AND ANSWER MODEL

So one way to imagine narrative rpgs is that you’re playing to find out the answer to questions. Specifically questions related to a character. Will Bob overcome his alcoholism and how? will Sue become a Death god? will Jack and Mary fuck?

In general these questions will begin forming in the set up phase of play and should be fully formed within about a session. (as a rule of thumb).

Furthermore, the player must be excited about answering these questions. They want to play to find out the answer or otherwise why bother.

Now these questions might be explicit, such as clearly defined character goals, or implicit, the character is in such and such a situation. I don’t claim the questions are necessarily clearly defined and I don’t think they have to be. Although if you’re asked to make some of your questions explicit and can’t, you’re probably in trouble.

To reiterate, in AN the purpose of play is to have a series of questions and to answer them.



PLAY STRUCTURE

We can imagine a sequence of play in the following way.

CHARACTER/SITUATION > ACTIONS > CONSEQUENCES.

A CHARACTER is in a SITUATION they take ACTION that produces CONSEQUENCES that change the CHARACTER and/or SITUATION which leads to a CHARACTER, in a SITUATION...and so on.

This basic sequence, loops around to form a unit of play (campaign, series of sessions or whatever) which is completed when all our questions are answered. So the initial questions we have about a character might change during the course of play, we then play to answer these new questions, when we run out of questions our character is done and the unit of play is complete.



ADVOCACY NARRATIVISM: THE HOW

So we have a character and some questions we want answering. We have a play structure. What we don’t yet have is a principled way of making character decisions. Deciding what actions the character will take when faced with the present situation. 

There are different approaches to this but in AN we use a method called Authentic Creative Tension, or ACT. So when your CHARACTER is in a SITUATION, you must ACT to take ACTION. (it’s very clever)


ACT CIRCLE




The basic idea is that you take into account your characters interests, what they want/would do. Yet are still responsive to how the situation might change those interests. That’s the tension. Between your advocacy for the character and the demands of the situation.

Note that this precludes making decisions based on the following criteria:

It would lead to hi-jinx, drama, interesting things.
It’s the plot-arc the player wants
It’s what the character sheet suggests
It would be what the character would do.

In AN we don’t do any of the above things.

I want to draw special attention to the last point, ‘what the character would do’. In AN the character you are playing is capable of change (for better or worse). You don’t just create a mental model of the character and then respond to the situation based upon that. The character themselves is in a state of flux. Otherwise you wouldn’t have questions about them, you’d know the answer.

Now to really complete the circle we need to add two more things that are in opposition. 
Players hopes and Playing to find out.


 
The player, probably hopes that their character does the right thing, learns the right lessons, ends up happy. Yet the player has also made a commitment to playing to find out what happens. It would be very easy to make character choices that lead to the character getting what the player hopes. Part of authentic play is counterbalancing that with ‘finding out’ and with advocating for INTERESTS and responding to SITUATION.

So that’s the basics. In part two we’ll go more in depth on certain topics.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
ADVOCACY NARRATIVISM PART TWO: INTERESTS ZOOMING IN So interests is the catch all term for the goals/motivations/habits of a character. These can include specific things (look after the well being of my family), more vague things (burning with anger), things that may be negative from the players perspective but not the characters (doesn’t care about human life) (alcoholic). Rather than try and create a taxonomy, I’m leaving what constitutes interests as a little fuzzy. In general though, they are things that leads to action. When a CHARACTER is in a SITUATION they pursue their INTERESTS. Explicit interests: We call an interest Explicit if it’s written as such on a character sheet. Examples are the ‘beliefs’ in Burning Wheel. ‘Best interests’ in IAWA. This also covers, Traits, flaws, personality types and so on in any number of games. If it’s written down, it’s explicit. Implicit interests: Are all the expected interests that come with being a character in a certa...
Read more
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. H...
Read more
Image
ADVOCACY NARRATIVISM  PART THREE: MECHANICS AND ACT So far we have four spokes in the ACT circle. Some games add more and we’ll go over these now. PLAYER (DIS)INCENTIVES Sometimes you’ll add another spoke from carrot and stick (incentive) mechanics. These can come from two sources. Fictionally triggered: If you drink blood you get XP. Player triggered: If you allow me to persuade you you get XP. My view is that these two things are kind of different and should be treated as such. Fictional triggers that provide incentive allow you to position/jostle your character into a position where the incentive can trigger. ACT should still be in play when you make the decision and pull the trigger though. Sue is playing Eve, a vampire. Sue wants that sweet XP and so she arranges for a situation where she is alone with Josh. Situation one: Josh is talking crap and Eve sneaks up behind him and (ACT) bites his throat. Situation two: Josh is talking ...
Read more