I'll take horribad character-speak over player-speak any day; as at least the horribad character-speaker is trying, and the results are almost always amusing and-or entertaining.
This has nothing to do with stance.
Stance is an attempt to describe the relatoinship between
player establishment of fiction and
player motivation having regard to the player's special connection to the PC. It's not about talking in first or third person.
Whether you prefer first-person or third person narration by players to establish action declarations and shared fiction is a completely separate thing.
For instance, the following bit of narration (which also, in some systems, involves action declaration), is first person - but director stance:
Player (speaking in character): I hook up with the local dealers in contraband to get hold of some XYZ.
In Classic Traveller that's a prelude to a Streetwise check; in Burning Wheel to a Circles check; in a typical D&D game there is no associated action declaration, but a GM might still accept it - "Sure, you're pretty sure you'll find someone fiting that descrition at any divy tavern in the Thieves' Quarter."
Despite being first person, it's director stance because it establishes some element of the shared fiction - namely, local contraband dealers the PC might hook up with - without that fiction itself being produced by the actions/choices of the PC.
Simple game mechanics dictate we can't stay in actor all the time - no character ever says "I rolled a 6, plus 2 for strength and three for magic weapon - did I hit?" to her opponent!
This has nothing to do with Stance either: a player saying those things is not trying to establish any shared fiction.
the quickest way to develop said grasp of character is to become that character, to the extent that game mechanics and other considerations allow.
This doesn't make sense. I can't
literally become a character. I can decide to
establish or
author a character. Until that is done, there is nothing for me to "become" or to "grasp".
I'm playing Jocinda in a combat situation, Falstaffe is one of my fellow party members. The DM has just informed me that I've noticed an enemy sneaking up on unaware Falstaffe...
1. "Falstaffe, look out on your left!"
2. "I warn Falstaffe that he's got an enemy sneaking up on him."
3. "Jocinda warns Falstaffe that he's got an enemy sneaking up on him."
See the difference? The first puts me in the action - I'm playing the role of Jocinda and saying what she would say. The other two leave me remote from Jocinda the character
player-speak can give some excellent game play but in the end that's all it is - a player playing a game. The player isn't even trying* to inhabit the character, think what it thinks, speak the character's words, etc.
Author and Director stance point away from playing the character as a person and more towards playing it as a pawn
Where my definition of playing a role is that an actor on a stage plays a role - the lines he speaks, his facial expressions, the movements he makes (subject to the spatial restrictions of the stage) are those of the character he's portraying in the stage play.
<snip>
Playing the role of a PC at a game table is, IMO, the same thing; and it's where the "role-playing" side of the game comes from.
while both the author and director have a sense of character in that they've (usually) got a clear idea of what their characters are all about, what motivates them, etc.; only the actor has a sense of character in terms of actually being the character, inhabiting its personality and looking through its eyes. That's (ideally) what I'm after.
This likewise all seems confused.
For instance, actual actors aren't being motivated by what motivates the character. They are being motivated by things like the desire to give a good performance, the desire to present the character authentically, the desire to please the director, the desire to get paid, etc, etc.
As far as inhabitation is concerned, the notion that some forms of narration at the table are more apt to produce "inhabitation" than others is an empirical conjecture, and I don't think there's any real evidence of it. (The opposite I've seen be true: ie when a player is in an especially inhabiting mood, s/he is more likely to narrate in first person - but the narration is the effect, not the cause, of the inhabitation.)
And the idea that author or director stance is treating the character as a pawn is not plausible at all. In the case of director stance, consider the example I just gave - that's not treating the PC as a pawn at all. I'm going to give more examples not far below that make the same point for author stance.
most players are going to kind of default (vaguely) to one stance, use that as a base to drift from, and then return.
Huh? How does a player in (say) Moldvay Basic drfit to "director stance"? Or stay (vaguely or otherwise) in that stance?
And why would a player default to one stance, in games that invite players to inhabit multiple stances? There's no reason to think this is true at all. Eg in Burning Wheel, a player might quickly move from director stance (making a Circles check) to author stance (wondering whether to change a Belief) to actor stance (declaring an action for a PC having regard to established Beliefs - that's how the game works. In Classic Traveller a player might quickly move from actor stance (declaring an action for his/her PC because s/he is imaginging to what the PC would want, like say an Admin check to persuade an official to look the other way) to author stance (lending an item from his/her PC sheet to another player's PC, because that will help optimise the party for their mission) back to actor stance (griping that the borrowing PC is a bludger!).
There's a reason that every commentator who has written about player stances has concluded that they're highly fluid in play.
And these examples also shows us that there's no connection between author stance and treating the character as a pawn. Nor between stance and first/third person - all the stuff I just described could be narrated in first person.
Fate points are not primarily used for authoring though, but for acting. More often than not, Fate points are used when the Actor wants to embrace or lean into their role at important, key moments. And yes, Fate points may also be used in occurrences when the Actor may desire to provide more "authorship" over the setting in ways that are applicable to the setting. Because just like in the context of D&D: all actors are authors. They have created their characters and they have a sense of their character's identity and not everything of that sort needs to be done outside of gameplay. In Fate, this may entail points where the PC declares that "they know a guy who can help" or some other story detail (e.g., "I pull out anti-shark repellent out of my bat utility belt."). In this role, they are both Actor and Author; it is neither an either/or situation, as the Actor is developing their sense of character and roleplaying who that character is. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, inherently forces the Actor out of Actor stance when they spend a Fate point. I have watched entire games of Fate done entirely from 1st person, in-character speak and roleplaying as character. The decisions were made, rejected, and formulated from in-character perspectives.
This further illustrates the complete independence of Stance and "inhabitation" and "first person".
A player who "leans into" their role, deciding that
this is the moment eg to reveal something profound about the character, is playing in author stance at that moment, but certainly need not cease to inhabit the character, nor drop out of first person narration.
Likewise a player who establishes (necessarily in director stance) that "I know a guy who can help", as per my example at the top of this post.
And for completeness, here's a repost of the definitions of stance:
Actor Stance: The person playing a character determines the character's decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have. This stance does not necessarily include identifying with the character and feeling what he or she "feels," nor does it require in-character dialogue.
Author Stance: The person playing a character determines the character's decisions and actions based on the person's priorities, independently of the character’s knowledge and perceptions. Author Stance may or may not include a retroactive "motivation" of the character to perform the actions.
Director Stance: The person playing a character determines aspects of the environment relative to the character in some fashion, entirely separately from the character's knowledge or ability to influence events. Therefore the player has not only determined the character's actions, but the context, timing, and spatial circumstances of those actions, or even features of the world separate from the characters.
Much the same can be found at
The Forge, where (as far as I know) the notion was first systematically developed. As far as I can see the blog that has been linked to has mostly copy-pasted Edwards 2001 text.
