benlehman | The Party Hydra, Bearing Witness, and Let Me Tell You About My Character

The Party Hydra, Bearing Witness, and Let Me Tell You About My Character

Oh my god, Becky, look at his RPG Theory post!

So this was the essay I promised in the notes of the last one.

The party hydra is, briefly, the phenomenon that most RPG parties act like a single unit, rather than like a group of individuals. All argument and decision making is down within the party, which then makes a single unified decision about what they are going to do.

I'm speaking here, for what it is worth, in terms of both Gamism and Narrativism (for Forgites), or in terms of tactical interest and plot interest (for those who you who aren't.) In a tactical situation, like say a D&D combat, the party is working together in an uncanny way, like it is a hydra (hence the name.) Likewise, we only see one decision at any important decision point, rather than a bunch of different reactions.

It isn't that the party can't act like a protagonist, or like a gutsy game player. Party hydra phenomenon can be present in a lot of successful play. It is just that it acts like one character when it does so.

(Personally, I think that the decision making gets a little watered down in the process, too...)

In this post and this lumpley article, I talk about bearing witness, and why that is important. I would like to note that I think it is important for both Gamist and Narrativist play (don't know about Sim. Frankly, don't care.) Non-forgies can just ignore the previous sentence, except for the point that everyone needs a witness. Go read the damn things, if you care!

For the reasons I outline in that post, I don't think that the GM can be a witness in that way that is necessary. Two reasons -- first, because the GM is an equal contributor to the protagonism of the player/character, and so just like the player cannot bear witness, because what is cool is not the protagonist but the protagonism. Secondly, I think the standard position of the GM as neutral arbiter of the world requires the GM to "break character" if he wants to observe and understand the protagonism in the necessary way. The witness needs to be able to say what was cool. The neutral GM cannot.

(Not saying that they can't be the same person. Just that they can't be the same person at the same time.)

So, if we take these two things together, we can understand why gamers want to tell you about their character all the time, and why it is usually dead boring.

See, in a party hydra game, there is really only one character, which all the players are playing, plus a GM for conflict. Let's say that it is a good game, and that the players all do really well and there's cool stuff going on. Because the players are all caught up in the same character, they can't really witness each other's triumphs in a serious way. Likewise, the GM is unlikely to be able to provide the necessary validation and sympathetic understanding that a witness provides.

And, god-damn-it, something cool happened! They want to tell someone about it.

So they do. At length. And it doesn't work, of course, because you didn't witness it. Gamers who are doing this are essentially groping in the dark for someone to provide them witness. Sadly, they are doomed, because there was no witness except for them, and that comes off as braggery, not triumph.

Thoughts?

P.S. to Forgites: I think that protagonism and protagonists apply to both Gamism and Narrativism. Seperate post, m'kay?

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I have been wondering about whether in some sense the player of a character can act as witness for certain of the character's decisions/successes/changes/etc.

Some people say 'if there isn't more than one person involved, it isn't roleplaying!' To me, this is silly, and wrong. I and many other people I know have experienced scenes that were entirely internal, IC mental processes or lone rants or things a character did when there was no one around to see at the time -- usually in LARPS, of course -- which were a major part of the gaming experience and critical to a character's arc.

But would these things be meaningful if we didn't have the overlooking presence of the player noticing, or able to say later from experience on the spot, "ah, here is where character X is facing issue Y and coming to a resolution that sends them in a new direction"?

I don't think this is necessarily the same thing as an external witness. But it does cover some of the same area. And for a witness to actually 'witness', don't they need to have some idea of what they are witnessing, or why it matters, or that there's even a story going on? In some cases, isn't, therefore, the player, despite their excessive involvement, a better 'witness' than an ignorant outside audience might be?

Does this get into the area of whether the witness idea applies to simulationism? I've never been able to get quite whether 'character development simulationism' is or is not something that falls under Simulationism as considered in GNS.

My impression, though this may be mistaken or oversimplified, is that Sim is more about a game which focuses on the experience of being part of the setting. I believe Edwards' essay on it was entitled "Simulationism: The Dream" or some such. Meaning the dream of what it would be like to live in the gameworld.

Not that this can't lead to interesting characters and characterization, if you have good RPers, just that the focus of the story may be less about the characters.

Sort of. Don't think I'm quite articulating it here.

Matt

Strictly to address your question of "character development sim" from someone with a pretty solid handle on GNS:

It depends.

In Simulationism, what's important is that the players are chiefly there, and chiefly jazzing, off the details of and [shared?] contributions to some element of the game. (GNS identifies five possible elements, being Character, Setting, Situation, Colour, and System.)

So it's perfectly conceivable to do "character development sim." For instance you might come up with a game which brought education PhD's on board the design crew, and put together a system which actually reflected the learning process in interesting detail, extending it to cover life-lessons with some kind of neat generalization or something. Then the process of characters learning those life lessons would be the element explored in play. An example might be the Arabian Nights LARP that got discussed here (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4646).

That would be sim:character development. Would work fine.

And I'll go beyond Ben's assertion and say that hell yeah, witnessing is just as necessary in sim as it is in the other two. A sim game with no witness is the incredibly detailed game universe, backstory, maps, economic system, artificial languages... that your little brother put together and never showed anyone who cared. It's necessary to share "Isn't this universe cool?" just as much as the other aspects of gaming.

- Eric F.

I am not trying to say "if there isn't more than one person involved, it isn't roleplaying!" Nothing I'm saying here is definitional about role-playing. Some of the things I'm saying here are definitional about protagonism, but protagonism isn't roleplay. They (maybe, depends on your defintion of RP) do a Venn Diagram thing with the overlapping circles, but that's all there is to it.

I don't think that you have protagonism of the sort that I am discussing here in FGS-style sim play. I don't think that characters in that sort of play are protagonists.

The dictionary definitions of protagonist are:
1) The lead character in a play or fictional work.
2) The initiator of great things.

I don't think that either of these two qualities are possessed by a character in FGS-style sim play. At least, not necessarily possessed. It isn't the focus. Whereas in, say, Sorcerer-style Nar play, you have to be both of those things to make any sense at all, as a character.

When I talk about witnessing, yeah, I'm talking about someone who can see and understand and judge. I go into a lot more detail in the lumpley thread, if you care to read that.

There may be something *like* witnessing in that sort of play. I just don't know. It's really difficult to get a theoretical handle on. A lot of players seem to be so caught up in "character as independent actor with no real player input" thing that it is hard to figure out what the players contribute, what the GM contributes, and what both sides get out of it. I mean, I can talk for me, but I'm clearly a slightly abnormal case.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S. Apropos of the last paragraph, and nothing else, what do you think of The Turku School (http://users.utu.fi/mijupo/turku/)? A good idea too far? Not far enough? Totally orthogonal to anything fun about role-playing?

Sorry, my first comment to your comment here got stuck below accidentally.

Anyway, I read the Turku manifesto a while ago and was totally turned off by its ranting about how other play styles are Bad and Lame and Unreal and Not Art. As was, largely, apparently its point -- to be totally over the top. Mostly I think it goes too far -- some of the Chastity vow is reasonable stuff in moderation, but I do think (more these days) that taking OOC stuff into consideration is a better bet for everyone's fun, and that that is an important consideration for RPGs too. And the ritualistic/sensory ways to fool ones own mind (mood music, 'not exactly real' props) are, I think, useful for better immersion/experience, not cheaty-outside-world things opposed to it.

I haven't had a chance to read it entirely through, but some of the stuff in Autonomous Identities seems more like what I'm used to.

A couple of things...

"Simulationism" is often talked about as a terrible misnomer: one of the alternatives, which I consider far superior, is "Emulationism". That is, that is is about emulating something. Maybe it's a movie, maybe it's a genre, maybe it's a specific characterization you think is cool. The key thing is that you are trying to get as close to whatever thing you are emulating as possible.

As to what you've experienced, I think Ben's point is partially muddled by the fact that what you are talking about is almost definately Simulationism (which he doesn't really care about, and thus his statements may not apply). Further, I'm not sure that it's really role playing without and audience, it seems to me that what you are talking about is more akin to authorship. You are writing this character.

I can't really speak on the subject of "character development simulationism" since I'm not sure exactly what you are talking about there, but a discussion of that might very well derail Ben's discussion here.

Thomas

Thomas, let's not try to alienate *all* of my old RPG buddies just days before I visit them. I'd rather not have Kendra strangle me on sight.

I take the brunt of the culpability for not explaining this, but: Kendra is a part of my old LARPing crew. We did a lot of heavy immersion stuff back in the day. Immerseive LARP (well, LARP in general) is something that Forge theories apply to only vaguely. Hence the "not caring."

yrs--
--Ben

Hm, so do you actually think this stuff has nothing to do with the type of RPGs I'm familiar with? 'Cause it seemed to me to work perfectly well, taking into account that not every PC is actually in a 'protagonist' role, even if people don't always realize that.

I'm not trying to say it doesn't apply, it's just that I don't know if it does apply or not (see below for some whining about my inability to do decent LARP theory.)

In terms of LARP, I'm sure that some of the Forge theory that this is based on applies, and that some does not. Sort of like taking critical framework for novels and using it for plays, sometimes it is going to be correct and sometimes it is going to fall flat. I don't know which is which, so I tread carefully, with caveats.

yrs--
--Ben

It's a shame that so many of the Forge bigshots think LARPing is stupid. They just refuse to pay any attention to it.

I, on the other hand, think it works perfectly well, but certain things get conflated (for instance, IIEE gets squished together pretty hard).

Whoops, see my below post... My first ever crosspost on LJ!

Thomas

Woohoo! The two posts above mine were written before I finished this post, just for some context.

Thomas

I wasn't claiming you said 'one person isn't RP!' -- it's just something I've heard/read in the past, which seemed it might be relevant to the 'witness' issue.

I did read the rest (I think) of the protagonist discussion through your links, and from what I read I thought that FGS-style sim play could coexist with protagonism, though it certainly does not always.

It may just be that I think that someone can be a 'protagonist' on a smaller scale which does not have to require being the obvious main character, good guy, and mover-and-shaker overall of an entire game, especially when that game is one (like many larps) which is not made of a single defining overall storyline.

Can things that look a lot like protagonism co-exist with FGS sim? Absolutely. I venture to say it happens a lot.

But it isn't the point of play. And, really, this essay is discussing play where protagonism is what it is about.

I'm trying to shy away from use of the term "protagonist" in favor of "protagonism" for a few reasons, not the least of which is that I think the important thing is the moment of decisions *and action* where the character/player does her thing. While the event, in-game, can be as small or large scale as you like, the event in terms of the players at the table is always the same scale, which is to say you have everyone's riveted focus and attention. We are storytelling creatures. We like to watch protagonism.

I know that this does not apply to LARPs. Frankly, as I said above, I think LARPs are really underinvestigated theoretically. Unfortunately, I'm not really the guy to do it, lacking a stable LARPing group a'tall, let alone one which is willing to try serious experimentation and open enough play to allow theoretical observation.

yrs--
--Ben

What's the difference between 'protagonism' and 'things that look a lot like protagonism'? Are you saying that it's real 'protagonism' only when 'protagonism is what it is about' all the time?

Assuming for the moment that we are speaking only about tabletop games, does that mean that in the tabletop game in question, the same person is always the focus? Or that individual people take turns being the focus?

It's hard for me to imagine a game where this sort of protagonisting is happening more than a certain percentage of the time, at least without it losing impact, and without the game losing a lot of the other things that make RPGs and the stories they create interesting and fun, namely, interaction between PCs.

How do you determine when a game has something to do with this discussion -- how do you judge when protagonisting is the 'point of play'?

Assuming for the moment that we are speaking only about tabletop games, does that mean that in the tabletop game in question, the same person is always the focus? Or that individual people take turns being the focus?

Nope. Sorcerer play, for example, is N-1 different stories about N-1 different protagonists, where N is the number of players (there is one GM, hence the N-1), all totally the focus of their own stories. In terms of the players, out of game, you're going to watch different players being the focus of different scenes, with other player's characters often not even present at all. They are all going to be interested in each other's scene, hopefully, because:
1) Watching protagonists in action is interesting.
2) The stories are all overlapping and occupying the same space and relating the same people, like maybe a group of short stories in the same setting.

It's hard for me to imagine a game where this sort of protagonisting is happening more than a certain percentage of the time, at least without it losing impact, and without the game losing a lot of the other things that make RPGs and the stories they create interesting and fun, namely, interaction between PCs.

I find it pretty fun.

How do you determine when a game has something to do with this discussion -- how do you judge when protagonisting is the 'point of play'?

This is a sticky wicket, especially in terms of play. I say "When having everyone contribute to a good story arc comes before anything else." If that comes before that vibe you get about "being" a character, or winning the game, or making people laugh, or making other people like you by helping out their characters, then I would say it counts. In Forge terms, this is a very rough description of Narrativist play. (I also think that this applies to Gamism, but I haven't proved that yet, and it isn't what we seem to be talking about).

In terms of game texts, it is often much easier. Sorcerer cannot be about character immersion -- you, as a player, must design conflict for your own character. You, as a player, know everything about other PC's storylines, even if you have never met. PrimeTime Adventures cannot be about character immersion -- the game is like writing a TV show. As examples.

Is this a little clearer now?

yrs--
--Ben

Ok, the Sorcerer example makes it much clearer. I have played Chill games that were very similar to this for much of their time, though they always would end up in having the characters meet and do some things as a group as well, though not necessarily remain a group (let alone a hydra) from that point forward.

I suppose it may just be a point of personal preference that I would be unhappy not to see the various storylines finally intersect. I am typically annoyed by books that spend too long going back and forth between different characters' stories that are truly separate. Using different characters perspectives/stories to tell non-overlapping but complementary parts of a greater story (Song of Ice and Fire, mostly) is fine; but that might be harder to do in a game than in a novel, and does that reduce protagonistry?

My reading and gaming experience has led me to expect, when I am introduced to characters and arcs that start out separate, that they will eventually come together within the course of the greater storyline. I suppose that in a 'shared world' book of short stories, that doesn't happen; but I can't think of an example where in that case the individual story arcs do not complete before switching to another.

The answer may just be 'RPGs are different, so none of that matters.' I consider it here to try to identify why this model of continually-distinct protagonist storylines seems odd and vaguely dissatisfying to me -- it all feels like lead-in to something requiring human interaction between characters that all matter.

Well, the stories usually do come together. One of the great things that Nar RPGs talk about is ways for the story to tie the stories together in satisfying ways that don't take away from any one character's protagonism. It is easier than one might think, really.

But yeah. Tying things together into a satisfying arc is key to the whole deal.

Also, I wanted to clarify that not all parties turn into hydras. To take some examples from shared games we've seen -- Flicker had a party, but it wasn't a hydra. Earthdawn is a party which is a hydra.

yrs--
--Ben

Yes, I was thinking a bit about Flicker while mentioning Chill, since Flicker also had people often going out and doing things in small groups or individually, even after the PCs met. One of the things I actually wished had been done a little differently were some of the times someone was having individual GM interaction but it wasn't public for other people to view. In Chill one of the neat things was that, like Sorcerer I suppose, all stories were public even if your character wouldn't know about them, so you could always enjoy them as audience rather than being bored when there wasn't anything going on for you.

I think there is no question that one person can be RP, just as one person can, alone in a room, act. We've had this debate before, though, the difference between the passive and active player, and you know my belief: while passive play is beneficial and can support active play, passive is inherently secondary, as it is an enabler of the latter, which is what brings enjoyment to others (particularly in a LARP context).

The issue here is one of terminology: from the Forge perspective, it's questionable whether this situation is an RPG (as they define it). That is all, nothing more. Define the word as you see fit.

(and hello to Forge denizens with whom I am only know beginning to learn of.)

Hi Ben,

At first I wasn't following with what you were saying about witnesses- but yeah, I get you now. I'm with you on the idea that both Gamist and Narrativist folks want/need an audience. The point is to get approval from the group, either in the classic Step on Up "Guts or Brains" dept., or the "Damn that was real" approval of addressing premise. When everyone is deep in the moment of performing, they have a hard time seeing the performances of others and being able to approve/disapprove of it. Sim people are about the sake of performing for performing and don't care if there's an audience or not(at least to my view).

I think its also much more rewarding for the GM when you don't have party-hydra because other players can also appreciate the cool stuff you're doing as a GM, instead of having to concentrate on responding to it.

PS- This also makes me think about my old "Ball Theory", because if you have party Hydra, everyone's trying to hit the ball at once, and no one can really appreciate the skills or techniques applied.

Aw, and here I was thinking you were talking about my long-dead RPGnet column (http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/collists/letmetellyou.html).

CU

Sorry to disappoint. I did read that column, back in the day. One of the better RPGnet pieces, I think.

yrs--
--Ben

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The Party Hydra, Bearing Witness, and Let Me Tell You About My Character

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