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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?
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?
no subject
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?
no subject
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.