Catalyst Castle

This is part 4 of a discussion I began last month. The object of this discussion is to help myself and those I role-play with get more out of our games.

In part 1 I talked about something called the GNS theory devised by a man named Ron Edwards. If you haven’t already, or need a refresher, you can read part 1 here. The basic gist of the article was that most people tend to gravitate towards one of 3 preferences for play, those being Gamism, Narrativism, or Simulationism.

In part 2 I talked more in depth about Simulationism, my personal preference for play. You can read the article here.

In part 3 I talked more in depth about Gamism. You can read the article here.

Now I’ll give you a summary of Ron Edwards’ article on Narrativism. This essay was perhaps the most well written one of the bunch, probably because it was written after the others. It featured extensive commentary on designing narrativist RPGs, so I’ll try to focus on just the parts that apply to actual play. If you’re interested, you can read the full essay here. (If you want the really short summary, skip to the last 3 or 4 paragraphs of this article.)


Ron Edwards begins by explaining what he means by “story” in the context of roleplaying:

Long ago, I concluded that "story" as a role-playing term was standing in for several different processes and goals, some of which were incompatible. Here's the terms-breakdown I'll be using from now on.

All role-playing necessarily produces a sequence of imaginary events. Go ahead and role-play, and write down what happened to the characters, where they went, and what they did. I'll call that event-summary the "transcript." But some transcripts have, as Pooh might put it, a "little something," specifically a theme: a judgmental point, perceivable as a certain charge they generate for the listener or reader. If a transcript has one (or rather, if it does that), I'll call it a story.

The mere presence of story as the product of role-playing is not a GNS-based issue.

Edwards goes on to associate narrative play with an expression: “Story Now”. He explains it thus:

Story Now requires that at least one engaging issue or problematic feature of human existence be addressed in the process of role-playing.

Can it really be that easy? Yes, Narrativism is that easy. The Now refers to the people, during actual play, focusing their imagination to create those emotional moments of decision-making and action, and paying attention to one another as they do it. To do that, they relate to "the story" very much as authors do for novels, as playwrights do for plays, and screenwriters do for film at the creative moment or moments. Think of the Now as meaning, "in the moment," or "engaged in doing it," in terms of input and emotional feedback among one another. The Now also means "get to it," in which "it" refers to any Explorative element or combination of elements that increases the enjoyment of that issue I'm talking about.

There cannot be any "the story" during Narrativist play, because to have such a thing (fixed plot or pre-agreed theme) is to remove the whole point: the creative moments of addressing the issue(s). Story Now has a great deal in common with Step On Up, particularly in the social expectation to contribute, but in this case the real people's attention is directed toward one another's insights toward the issue, rather than toward strategy and guts.

So, this all sounds interesting in theory, but what does it look like in action? Here’s what Edwards says:

How is this done, actually, in play? It relies on the concept of something called Premise and its relationship to an emergent theme. [Premise is] that "problematic issue" I mentioned. Theme is defined as a value-judgment or point that may be inferred from the in-game events.

Narrativist Premises vary regarding their origins: character-driven Premise vs. setting-driven Premise, for instance. They also vary a great deal in terms of unpredictable "shifts" of events during play. The key to Narrativist Premises is that they are moral or ethical questions that engage the players' interest. The "answer" to this Premise (Theme) is produced via play and the decisions of the participants, not by pre-planning.

A possible Narrativist development of the "vampire" initial Premise, with a strong character emphasis, might be, Is it right to sustain one's immortality by killing others? When might the justification break down?

Another, with a strong setting emphasis, might be, Vampires are divided between ruthlessly exploiting and lovingly nurturing living people, and which side are you on?

Edwards elaborates further on the importance of premise being addressed as a group in narrativist roleplaying:

Premise must pose a question to the real people, creator and audience alike. The fictional character's belief in something like "Freedom is worth any price" is already an implicit question: "Is it really? Even when [insert Situation]?" Otherwise it will fail to engage anyone. […] The Premise's imaginary resolution is up for grabs among the group in role-playing. […] Everyone involved has his or her fair crack at it as one of the authors.

The [premise] is the idea that you wish to explore in the story. It brings unity to the story and is explored throughout the story by the actions of the players and the main characters. Even the obstacle or conflict that forms the plot usually resonates with the [premise]. It is the thread that ties everything together and usually teaches the players [theme].

The actions of the players teach the players something, which becomes non-circular when play actually addresses Premise.

Edwards goes on to address some common misunderstandings about narrativist play:

The number of textual rules involved, as well as how much the rules must be consulted during play, are irrelevant. "Narrativist? Must be rules-light!" is just one of those little humps to get over. […] Focusing on single Techniques to define Narrativism will not yield understanding. For instance, Drama resolution is not in and of itself Narrativist. Nor are the common use of improvisation, trading of narration, and overt Director stance, in and of themselves, Narrativist play. […] Issues of "consciousness" in terms of Premise are collectively a complete red herring. People daily address Premise without self-reflecting, both as audience and authors. There's no special need to say to one another, "This is the Premise" in order to be playing Narrativist. […] Depth and profundity of the Premise and/or theme are false variables. The key issue is whether participants care enough to produce a point, not whether the point is deep.

The essay next addresses what Edwards calls “minor issues with Narrativist play”:

The first minor issue is not really a big deal - simply, not everyone is necessarily a whiz at addressing Premise even when they try. If they were, we'd see a lot more great novels, comics, movies, and plays than we do. Signs of "hack Narrativism" include backing off from unexpected opportunities to address Premise or consistently swinging play into parody versions of the issues involved. I don't see any particular reason to bemoan or criticize this bit of dysfunction; all art forms have their Sunday practitioners.

The second is a recent phenomenon: the "do it right" purists, often recently made aware of GNS or other theories, who then get on their fellow participants' cases during play to accord with some theoretical ideal.

The third was mentioned earlier, based on the tendency for pre-game preparation to develop Situation so far along the process of addressing Premise, that the participants' input during play essentially delivers only the final moments. I call such play "96%-ing," which can be functional, but it tends to play safe to a degree that undercuts the process.

The fourth is maintaining privacy among the participants about what's important to each one, whether about one's own character or the characters of others. Such play might be thought of as keeping Premise personal and close to the vest. That privacy may detract from others' enjoyment.

The final minor problem is to resolve play-Situations rapidly and without developing them much beyond the initial preparatory circumstances: "over before it begins." This typically occurs when people are so floored by the possibility of actually addressing a Premise through play, that they hare off to do so before some RPG god notices and intervenes to stop them. Usually, this sort of play is a short-lived phase as the group builds trust with one another.

After that, Edwards addresses the two biggest problems that may crop up in narrativist play. The first is an overbearing player, who wants to address premise and develop theme, but only where it concerns their character. The second is a controlling, “railroading” GM who forcefully maneuvers play so that premise is addressed the way he wants it to be, and the only resulting theme can be the one he’s already chosen. Edwards continues with this observation:

Going "no system," […], combines the undermining aspects of both of the above two approaches, especially when the author idealizes story as a product rather than Narrativist play as a process. Don't forget, all role-playing has a system; turning it over to "oh, just decide and have fun" merely makes the system crappy and prone to bullying.

Frankly, un-structured Drama turns out to be ill-suited to Narrativist play. It's clear why people turn to it so consistently; years of suffering through task-resolution systems that fail to resolve conflict, with the attendant Simulationist creep of rules-revisions during the 1980s, is enough to put any aspirant Narrativist off of "rules" and "systems."

Like the previous 2 essays, Ron Edwards ends this one with a “hard question” about Narrativism:

Are you Simulationist-by-habit, which is to say, well-trained to this mode by the first group you encountered? If so, is that what you really want? If so, then excellent. But! If not, if you'd rather be addressing Premise, then you have a lot of habits to break - perhaps even those which, in your mind, originally defined the activity.

The second, larger question is much like the Gamist one: why role-play for this purpose? Why this venue, and not some more widely-recognized medium like writing comics or novels or screenplays? Addressing Premise can be done in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of artistic media. To play Narrativist, you must be seizing role-playing, seeing some essential feature in the medium itself, which demands that Premise be addressed in this way for you and not another. What is that feature? If you can't see one, then maybe, just maybe, you are slumming in this hobby because you're afraid you can't hack it in a commercial artistic environment. Maybe you even hang with a primarily-Simulationist group, with the minimal levels of satisfaction to be gained among them, because it's safe there.

But let's say you do answer that question, and hold your head up as a Narrativist role-playing practitioner, addresser of Premise. Fine - now you have to ask yourself whether you can handle artistic rejection. That's right, no one might be interested in you. This is exactly what all aspiring directors, screenwriters, novelists, and other practitioners of narrative artistry face. In which case, you'll have to decide whether it's because your worthy vision is unappreciated and should seek new collaborators, or because your vision is simply lacking. It's not an easy thing to deal with.

Here’s the short summary of what I got out of Ron Edwards’ essay:

Narrativism is playing with the express intent of addressing a premise (“Does might make right?”) and establishing a theme through the process of playing (“Might does make right.” or “Might does not make right.”). The point is to create a story as the object of play, not as an incidental by-product.

An important aspect of narrativist play is making sure that all players have the opportunity to take sides on the premise and impact the emergent theme. Players can’t be railroaded by the GM into expressing a particular theme.

I have to say that after simulationism, narrativism holds a lot of interest for me. The idea of walking away from a game feeling like more than just a series of events had transpired, but that an actual story with a definite message had been told, sounds like a very fun experience. However, I do like that simulationism doesn’t impose the expectation of telling a story with premise and theme. If it happens then that’s cool – but if it doesn’t – oh well, we still had fun.


That raps up my summaries of Ron Edwards more in-depth essays on GNS. Hopefully it’s given people food for thought. With this information in mind, I’d be interested in hearing more from everyone on what they think of each of these modes of play. It’d be nice to get a more thorough understanding of peoples’ preferences.