Improvisation vs "code-breaking" in D&D

[Celebrim]

Here is another passage of his from the simulationism essay, which is relevant to just about every alignment and paladin thread ever generated on ENworld:

Consider the behavioral parameters of a samurai player-character in Sorcerer and in GURPS. On paper the sheets look pretty similar: bushido all over the place, honorable, blah blah. But what does this mean in terms of player decisions and events during play? I suggest that in Sorcerer (Narrativist), the expectation is that the character will encounter functional limits of his or her behavioral profile, and eventually, will necessarily break one or more of the formal tenets as an expression of who he or she "is," or suffer for failing to do so. No one knows how, or which one, or in relation to which other characters; that's what play is for. I suggest that in GURPS (Simulationist), the expectation is that the behavioral profile sets the parameters within which the character reliably acts, especially in the crunch - in other words, it formalizes the role the character will play in the upcoming events. Breaking that role in a Sorcerer-esque fashion would, in this case, constitute something very like a breach of contract.​

This is a complete tangent, but this is yet another reason why I disagree with Ron Edwards as a designer and commentator, and for me the quote does the opposite of bolster your point.

What gets me about the assumption Edwards makes is that it assumes I write Bushido on a sheet because it isn't a an expression of who the character is. It assumes that the who the real person is, invariably is found in their relinquishing of honor, morality, dignity and so forth and that is what makes for an interesting story. (See Sorcerer.) The real "you" in this case is the one that abandons what they believe, what they hold dear, in favor of something easy because - as Ron Edwards makes clear explicitly - they fear "suffering for failing to do so". It's as if I put Bushido on my character sheet because I don't really plan on playing that character at all, but with the assumption that it's inevitably going to fail because it reaches "functional limits of his or her behavioral profile". I put it on my sheet not to explore what it would be like to adhere to an idealistic code, but to express my disgust with such a thing. It's as if everyone that ever played a Paladin did so with the desire for the Paladin to fall because they believed good or honor was dysfunctional.

Of course the person playing someone with a code of honor of some sort expects to suffer at times because of that code. That's the point. The true character of the person isn't revealed when they depart from the code, but in how they suffer for it. If you don't intend to suffer for it, you shouldn't have it on your sheet in the first place because it doesn't actually in any meaningful way define who the character is. You should have a quirk on your character sheet that reads something like, "Always speaks of Bushido as if he believed in it and lived it, but doesn't really."

I suggest that in GURPS, the expectation is that character will encounter hardship resulting from his behavioral profile, and NOT necessarily break one or more formal tenets as an expression of who he or she "is", and possibly (but not necessarily) suffer for doing so. I didn't realize telling a story and prioritizing the telling of a story required me to expect all honor to be false or frailty.

But then again, his definitions in that paragraph are so slippery that it's not even clear he knows what he's talking about. What he calls 'narrativism' looks to me like 'exploration of character or theme' and a sort of what he elsewhere calls simulationism. Exactly how you clearly and cleanly separate character and story from setting I've never been sure. Is "Dare to Dream" really so different than "Story First"? What sort of story about a fictional world (and every work of fiction is set in a fictional world) isn't daring to dream? Even a game like Fiasco has a "Dare to Dream" component to it of being someone other than who you are.

It has always seemed to me that the above definition of narrativism is actually not defining a desire for story, but defining incidental properties of a setting or properties of a character within a setting and then claiming this is the one true way to get a story.

In a current alignment thread, I (and some other posters) have said that we prefer an approach to alignment, paladin codes etc where the player is the principal determiner of what the code requires. The response we get from some (yet other) posters is that this is broken, is allowing paladins to get away with (literal) murder, etc.

Well, in theory, yes, it could. And I wouldn't be terribly surprised from my experiences to find things rise to that level of hypocrisy, even if with particular groups or players it didn't.

But, more to the point, I see it as a fundamentally poor simulation of what it means to be and how you would experience being a paladin, which you would expect to create stories that poorly resemble how someone with a deep commitment to their beliefs would behave. This is because the player's experience of "being a Paladin" will fundamentally be the experience of being your own source of truth, whereas the character he is playing fundamentally has the belief and has the experience that he is not his own source of truth. The fundamental experience of the Paladin is that he's in humble submission to some higher power. The fundamental experience that the player who determines for himself what the code requires is of being ones own highest power. You can't reasonably expect to create stories which resemble stories about paladins, if the character is fundamentally at odds with the character of a paladin.

If you actually want that experience, then by all means play a CG champion and not one that is Lawful. A CG champion is of course free to reevaluate his beliefs or act inconsistently simply because he sees what he has formerly done or what he would be inclined to do is non-functional. But this is a fundamentally different experience from a player that has decided to commit to a code.

What Ron Edwards claims is a matter of system to me strikes me as really being what D&D would consider a matter of alignment. It's an expression of some core beliefs about how the world really works. He's expressing the core belief that a story lacks certain positive attributes (typically called "mature" or something of the sort by Edwards), if it does not express that the world works the way he wants it to. One aspect of this approach conceived from Edwards ideal of what Narrativism means, is that seems to encourage the GM to create an explicitly perverse universe which acts to entrap or ensnare anyone that holds to a belief in an impossible situation, ostensibly to create drama. Techniques of this sort even have names (though I forget exactly what the terminology is), but in effect what they are is a sort of anti-providential nature to the universe, such that the universe always perversely twists to disprove any assertion of nobility or goodness with the expectation that caught in such a trap the character will relinquish their "immature" beliefs in favor the "mature" beliefs Edwards seems to admire. Especially if Sorcerer is any guide, I'm not sure his idea of maturity is compatible with mine.

This assumption I even see tainting my more experienced players who have no "nar" background, but not tainting my inexperienced player. My inexperience player playing a 'Paladin' does what he believes to be right, because that's who he really is. He's not faking it by playing the character. And every time he's in the process of trying to decide what the right thing is to do, my more experienced players are screaming at him, "Shut up. Don't do it. Don't be involved". Why? Because they think that regardless of what the Paladin does, the game universe as represented by me is going to hate him for it and I'm going to take every single opportunity to make him pay for adhering to any standard of basic decency. This is the viewpoint of the GM not as the God of the game world, nor even as neutral impersonal referee, but as its Satan.

And it doesn't matter how many times that being merciful is received with gratitude, expressions of honor result in admiration, expressions of truth are repaid with trust, purity is paid with invulnerability, valor wins the day, a self-sacrifice earns someone's loyalty, and so forth, the long time players still have the ingrained belief that the DM's role is to play 'gotcha' to anyone with a code of honor and to break them and make them suffer. I'm not saying that he doesn't sometimes suffer for his beliefs or that the character is always played wisely and makes the right choices - he's lately been overly brash and vainglorious, and suffered for it, not because I wanted it that way but because that's usually what happens when you split the party. But the universe as created by me isn't actively out to renounce him or his beliefs, and to the extent that there are agents that despise everything he stands for there are forces of good who favor him balancing that.

 

[Balesir]

I still have nowhere near the time required to explain what, in the GNS essays, I find to be unique (other than the "one agenda at a time" thing), but I can make a brief comment on this:

But, more to the point, I see it as a fundamentally poor simulation of what it means to be and how you would experience being a paladin, which you would expect to create stories that poorly resemble how someone with a deep commitment to their beliefs would behave.

I think this illustrates well the first of two fundamental misunderstandings you seem to be assuming about Edwards' idea of "Nar" play. The idea is not to "simulate" what it is to be a paladin. That would be Simulationism, which he already says expects the paladin to stick to the code in order for the player to experience something of "paladinism".

Edwards' Narrativism is, like his Gamism, something different. It requires the player to inject something of themselves; in Gamism it's their skill, but in Narrativism it's their beliefs. The player states what they think it means to be a paladin, and it's the job of all the other players (including the GM) to show how following this code will, inevitably and eventually, lead to them doing something "un-paladin-y".

This idea of the story-world deliberately challenging the character does nt come from Edwards, incidentally. Bob McKee - who has way more story credibility than either Edwards or (most certainly) I - explains this in his book "Story". To make a story, here's all you need to do:

- Have a character with a "dramatic need", which is just something they will go to effort to achieve

- Have the character try to meet that need by the simplest, easiest route possible.

- Think of a reason - any reason - why this will not work.

- Have them try a slightly more difficult route to fulfil the need.

- Think of a reason why that won't work.

- Repeat this cycle until a crisis is reached and Story happens.

I have seen this work for scenarios as various as a young tribesman trying to impress his beloved and a young woman deciding she wants a cigarette (yes, really - that one turned into a murder story...)

If this is how Robert McKee recommends generating a story, it's good enough for me.

 

[Celebrim]

Edwards' Narrativism is, like his Gamism, something different. It requires the player to inject something of themselves...

How is it possible to play a character and not inject something of myself?

; in Gamism it's their skill, but in Narrativism it's their beliefs.

But then, you are not playing a character. You are playing yourself. And while it's perfectly fine to play yourself, and arguably the majority of gamers are only functionally able to play themselves, if you are playing yourself it is ridiculous and meaningless to label the beliefs of the character as being anything other than your own beliefs.

The player states what they think it means to be a paladin, and it's the job of all the other players (including the GM) to show how following this code will, inevitably and eventually, lead to them doing something "un-paladin-y".

I have no idea how any of that follows, but I sure as heck don't agree there is some sort of social contract to undermine other player's characterization.

Rather, when I acting as either a player or a GM state my intention to personify a Paladin in the game, what I'm stating is that this what I think it means to be a paladin (as approved by the GM, whoever that may be) and it is my job to show all the other players at the table how very paladin-y my character is. In the case of a Paladin it will be by following a code which we all agreed was very Paladin-y. I never assume either as a player or a GM that the point is to get characters to act in a way that is out of character, much less that it is an inherent nature of moral codes that they fail which is what you seem to be saying here.

Nor do I see how this invariably leads to a story, or how it more invariably leads to a story than some other approach. And at some level it's a bit ridiculous. If I'm playing myself, rather than a Paladin, and injecting my own beliefs rather than the Paladins, then of course the result won't be a Paladin because I'm not one. And the whole exercise in then calling this character a Paladin is insane, and one wonders why in the world you'd bother to do it.

- Have a character with a "dramatic need", which is just something they will go to effort to achieve

- Have the character try to meet that need by the simplest, easiest route possible.

- Think of a reason - any reason - why this will not work.

- Have them try a slightly more difficult route to fulfil the need.

- Think of a reason why that won't work.

- Repeat this cycle until a crisis is reached and Story happens.

But regardless of the utility of this, this is not remotely what you have outlined earlier in the context of explaining "nar". Closer to what you have outlined is - "Repeat this cycle until the character with the dramatic need fails or betrays themselves." Nor for that matter does I think your archetype really describe all or even most stories, much less describe what I think it is a good plan of attack for creating a good story. In order to fit this design to stories, we are going to have to adopt very vague and generous definitions of the above ideas. Nor for that matter, if we are to accept that this is the means of generating stories, is it in any way obvious that it's not applicable to what Edwards describes as the "sim" approach of contractually agreeing to play a character.

 

[pemerton]

this is yet another reason why I disagree with Ron Edwards as a designer and commentator, and for me the quote does the opposite of bolster your point.

What gets me about the assumption Edwards makes is that it assumes I write Bushido on a sheet because it isn't a an expression of who the character is. It assumes that the who the real person is, invariably is found in their relinquishing of honor, morality, dignity and so forth and that is what makes for an interesting story. (See Sorcerer.)

<snip>

Of course the person playing someone with a code of honor of some sort expects to suffer at times because of that code. That's the point. The true character of the person isn't revealed when they depart from the code, but in how they suffer for it.

<snip>

I see it as a fundamentally poor simulation of what it means to be and how you would experience being a paladin, which you would expect to create stories that poorly resemble how someone with a deep commitment to their beliefs would behave.

How is it possible to play a character and not inject something of myself?

<snip>

But then, you are not playing a character. You are playing yourself.

<snip>

I never assume either as a player or a GM that the point is to get characters to act in a way that is out of character, much less that it is an inherent nature of moral codes that they fail which is what you seem to be saying here.

I don't see how your reiteration of a preference for playing alignment in what Edwards calls the GURPS/simulationist style, and your expressed distaste for what Edwards calls the Sorcerer/narrativist style, shows that he is wrong to distinguish those two styles as reflecting significant differences of play approach within the RPGing community. To me it seems to reinforce the point that he has identified and relatively accurately described an important difference in play approaches.

I also think you have misunderstood Edwards comment about bushido (or chivalry, or whatever) in Sorcerer et al.

The point is not that any moral code must be shown to be false. The point of the sort of play approach he points to is that characters are subject to stress, and hence change. Your example of suffering for a code could easily be incorporated into that approach - the initial descriptor, which is expected to be placed under stress by play, might be something along the lines of keeping to my oaths is no problem for me.

This also reinforces the point I made upthread, in response to [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION], that Ron Edwards is not any sort of post-modernist. His conception of story, and of the role of character within a story, is thoroughly modernist: the character has some sort of dramatic need, circumstances conspire to thwart the straightforward satisfaction of that need, and in overcoming those circumstances the character comes to realise that his/her initial conception of what s/he needed, and what his/her situation was, was in some sense incomplete or deficient. So at the resolution of the story, when the character has reached some sort of resolution in relation to the initial need, that resolution may be something which - at the beginning - the character would not even have recognised as speaking to his/her situation and his/her need. (In the more tragic version, the character ends up in a situation which s/he might - at the start - have counted as resolution, but in light of the changes to the character is now deeply inadequate or unsatisfying in some fashion.)

 

[Celebrim]

I don't see how your reiteration of a preference for playing alignment in what Edwards calls the GURPS/simulationist style...

I'm not even talking about a preference for playing alignment. Alignment has here been a very incomplete short hand for character. Nothing that I've said even when I use terminology from a specific game should in any way be construed to be system specific. Fiasco generally presumes this same sort of "contract", and does not presume that the character will necessarily or inevitably grow or change as the result of his experiences. This contract that you will play a character that has whatever traits you label the character with, however you label the character, is inherent in roleplaying. If you don't intend to abide by your traits, don't bother writing them down, because what the heck do they mean in that case anyway?

Yes, I am familiar with games that allow characters to have very fluid and evolving traits. But even they only assume that traits will be tested. They don't assume that a trait will necessarily be abandoned. They merely allow it to be changed if the player (or the table) decides to.

The stance that you should be redefining your character all the time, it's that stance that strikes me as being oddly parallel to an alignment stance in D&D. It's not that I think it's impossible or unreasonable to play a character that is vacillating, unconsidered in his beliefs, and unprincipled and whose beliefs would fluctuate on an almost daily basis with his moods and feelings. It's merely the idea that you have or even should if you want story that I find bizarre.

...and your expressed distaste for what Edwards calls the Sorcerer/narrativist style, shows that he is wrong to distinguish those two styles

Nonsense is distinguishable from sense, but that doesn't make nonsense an actual thing.

To the extent that I see something meaningful in what you are calling the Narrativist style, it appears to be asking the question, "What would I do?" as opposed to, "What would the character do?"

But while that is a meaningful distinction, the first is a strict subset of the second. It's not a contradiction nor incompatible. The first person is playing a character whose beliefs/strictures/code/moral attributes/descriptors happen to correspond to his own, which a person playing the later could do just as well without feeling he's changed styles. Moreover, two players at the table could simultaneously play in the same game using the same system and created a shared story. Or the same person could play a character like himself for a while, and switch to a character unlike himself. This makes his distinction here at most a slight change in stance, and by in large a meaningless change in stance, because as I said most players end up playing themselves anyway even without meaning to and ultimately in the long run end up gravitating game after game to a character with recognizable traits. I mean this is something that is so common 'Knights of the Dinner Table' satirizes it.

The point is not that any moral code must be shown to be false. The point of the sort of play approach he points to is that characters are subject to stress, and hence change.

Obviously, any play approach characters are subject to stress and may be subject to change. But equally in any play approach a character may be subject to stress and find in that validation of his beliefs. Or the character could finish the story still oblivious. Subject to change doesn't mean that they will change or must. Change in the sense of departing from what one formally believed is not a necessary component of anyone's story.

 

[Balesir]

How is it possible to play a character and not inject something of myself?

It may very well not be, but some agendas for play treat the injection of self as desirable and intentional, rather than an unfortunate inevitability. This is one fault line along which styles of play divide, since you can't treat something as both desirable and undesirable at the same time.

But then, you are not playing a character. You are playing yourself.

I don't think it's that cut and dried; you are playing an aspect of yourself, maybe, in control of a different body and sensory apparatus. Or a set of ideas you have toyed with and wish to adopt in order to explore more forcefully.

Taking the case of the paladin, I may have no desire to be paladin-ly myself, but I have views on what being a paladin would involve - what the outlook and aspirations of a paladin should be. And I may wish to experiment with adopting those aspirations and that outlook in a "safe" environment.

I have no idea how any of that follows, but I sure as heck don't agree there is some sort of social contract to undermine other player's characterization.

Other than that I don't think it necessarily amounts to "undermin(ing an)other player's characterisation", part of what Edwards is saying is that Nar play does involve just such a social contract. That's one of the features that makes it different from Sim or Gam aimed play. Deliberately putting difficult or "interesting" choices in the path of a character that relate to their stated beliefs is an expected part of Nar play, as I understand it.

But regardless of the utility of this, this is not remotely what you have outlined earlier in the context of explaining "nar". Closer to what you have outlined is - "Repeat this cycle until the character with the dramatic need fails or betrays themselves."

You have narrowed down on what I think amounts to a straw man, here. Dramatic need failing or the character betraying themselves, while possible, are very much the extreme end of what is expected to happen. More usually, the character's beliefs or aims tend to be modified, or to mutate. This is a commonplace of drama in general. The character's personality and credo might be expected to mature - to become more tempered by adversity.

This might work better if described by example, and I realised recently that something similar has been happening in the 4E game I GM. It's not a great example, but it's a real one, and one I have seen first hand.

One of the characters in the game is a paladin. I have not enforced any sort of "paladin's code" as GM, relying on the player wanting to play a paladin. At lower levels, the character was very clearly rote and/or dogma driven. The catch phrase - somewhat tongue in cheek - was formed "thinking lets doubt in!"

As play has continued through 26 levels (so far), however, the characters beliefs have tempered and been modified by circumstances. The discovery that the fate of the souls of all who die is at stake has led him to back the wizard and engage in negotiations and even an uneasy alliance with agents of Vecna (and, arguably, with Vecna himself). Our paladin has learned, the hard way, the benefits of tolerance*. And yet, he is most certainly no less a paladin; he is pursuing a quest to prevent the souls of all who die from falling into the hands of a demon lord, and I can scarcely think of a more paladinly quest than that! Nevertheless, it's still fair to say that his whole outlook and "code" have been altered in the process.

*: As an aside, some years ago I had a moment of clarity when Piers Benn pointed out, in a book I was reading, that "tolerance" in no sense implies "agreement". You don't tolerate what you agree with - that would be silly - you tolerate what you disagree with. And yet, tolerance is most assuredly a virtue. Our paladin has learned tolerance - and I think the players have learned something of it, too. It has not caused the betrayal of his paladin's code - it has become a part of it.

Nor for that matter does I think your archetype really describe all or even most stories, much less describe what I think it is a good plan of attack for creating a good story. In order to fit this design to stories, we are going to have to adopt very vague and generous definitions of the above ideas.

I don't claim it's the only way to generate stories, and I agree that it's more art than science, but I merely point out that someone far more qualified to talk about stories than I recommends the technique. And, in my experience, it works surprisingly well.

Nor for that matter, if we are to accept that this is the means of generating stories, is it in any way obvious that it's not applicable to what Edwards describes as the "sim" approach of contractually agreeing to play a character.

It seems obvious to me, because Sim tends to be poorly disposed to the situation being deliberately manipulated in order to present obstacles to the character. This is a technique for making a story, not for exploring an imagined world; the world warps in order to make the story happen. This tends to be anathema (for good, internally consistent reasons) for games not deliberately run to promote a Nar agenda.

 

[pemerton]

This contract that you will play a character that has whatever traits you label the character with, however you label the character, is inherent in roleplaying. If you don't intend to abide by your traits, don't bother writing them down, because what the heck do they mean in that case anyway?

<snip>

To the extent that I see something meaningful in what you are calling the Narrativist style, it appears to be asking the question, "What would I do?" as opposed to, "What would the character do?"

<snip>

Obviously, any play approach characters are subject to stress and may be subject to change.

<snip>

Subject to change doesn't mean that they will change or must.

It is not true that this contract that you will play a character that has whatever traits you label the character with, however you label the character, is inherent in roleplaying. That's the point of the Edwards passage, in distinguishing two different approaches to RPGing.

From Burning Wheel (rev ed), pp 56-57:

[By] stating a Belief . . . you are letting other players know you want situations revolving around that theme . . . You might not even succeed, but playing out that struggle is what the game is all about.

Beliefs are meant to be conflicted, challenged, betrayed and broken. Such emotional drama makes for a good game. . . .

A player may change his character's Beliefs as he sees fit. Characters are meant to grow and change through play. Changing Beliefs is a vital part of that growth. However, . . . if [the GM] feels the player is changing a Belief to wriggle out of a difficult situation and not as part of character growth, he may delay the change until a time that he sees as appropriate.​

The point of these character traits is not to constrain the players' play of their PCs, but to signal the sorts of situations that the players wants the GM to frame their PCs into.

This also relates to the point about stress. The whole point of play in the narrativist/"Sorcerer" style is for the GM to frame the PCs into situations which will stress their beliefs and will oblige them to change. If the player asks "What would the character do?", there should be no answer that can simply be read off the character's traits - if there is such an answer, the GM hasn't done his/her job properly. Which isn't to say that the character is asking "What would I do?" Rather, by choosing what the character does do the player is shaping the character's traits; which is the reverse of the causal sequence posited in what Edwards calls the simulationist/"GURPS" style.

 

[Celebrim]

It may very well not be, but some agendas for play treat the injection of self as desirable and intentional, rather than an unfortunate inevitability.

As I said, playing yourself is a subset of the agenda and requirement to play your character. If you are playing yourself, then injecting yourself into the character is entirely appropriate because that is who your character is. Injecting something of yourself into a part, regardless of the part, is also an inevitability but not necessarily an unfortunate one. In the same way that different actors might portray Hamlet or any other character in slightly different ways, so long as they stayed true to the character and did a good job of acting, you'd say that although different each actor saw the character clearly and did a good job. The variation would be desirable, and not unfortunate, allowing you to see different possible sides of the same role and allowing you to admire what each actor brought to the role.

The only time injecting yourself into a character is undesirable is when it is thoughtless and in particular, when the portrayal is now at odds to who the character is established to be.

I would not call out "playing yourself" and "playing the character" as being very big differences in approach. The big difference in approach is whether you are playing a character - that is, you are constrained by the personality and beliefs of the character in some fashion - or playing a pawn or playing piece, where the character has no particular beliefs or personality and is simply pushed around "a board" to obtain a victory. Unlike the first distinction, this is actually a contrasting agenda of play which is potentially in tension. As I said, you can have two players at the table, one playing themselves and another playing a character, and both will be perfectly peachy keen happy. Neither is interfering with what the other wants. But if you have someone playing a character and someone playing a pawn, then that can be a source of tension. In practice though, this is partially mitigated by the fact that you almost never encounter someone that is purely playing their character in one way, but as a mixture of character, themselves, and pawn.

As far as which is better, I will advance the controversial position that "playing a character" is a higher level of skill than "playing a pawn" and as such is more desirable in a player. The reason for this is that players will evaluate DM's as playing at a higher level of skill if they play characters rather than pawns, and do not inject themselves into every character but rather make characters distinctive. I've played for 30 years and never yet met the player that didn't make that judgment of my play, and never yet met the player who wasn't appreciative of me bringing NPC's to life in that fashion. By the rule that you should reciprocate by behaving in the way you want others to behave, playing a character is better than playing a pawn. Not because playing as a pawn is wrong, but because it requires more skill. Indeed, the highest levels of skill are seen in players that both play characters, and who possess a high degree of ability at keeping those characters alive and succeeding at their goals. Because ultimately, what the game asks of the players is for them to play protagonists in adventures, and that is what a 'reader' usually wants to see in the protagonists.

This is one fault line along which styles of play divide, since you can't treat something as both desirable and undesirable at the same time.

As I said, "playing yourself" and "playing a character" is not incompatible.

Other than that I don't think it necessarily amounts to "undermin(ing an)other player's characterisation", part of what Edwards is saying is that Nar play does involve just such a social contract. That's one of the features that makes it different from Sim or Gam aimed play. Deliberately putting difficult or "interesting" choices in the path of a character that relate to their stated beliefs is an expected part of Nar play, as I understand it.

You are conflating two completely separate things. I agree that deliberately putting difficult or interesting choices in the path of a character that relate to their stated beliefs is more of a Narratavist technique than a Simulationist technique, although in practice this can be highly blurred. For example, my current campaign would be identified by Edwards as Sim, but because we created character backstories that implied particular conflicts in the character's background, the very fact that the game universe exists as described in those backstories means those backstories are continually catching up to the characters in various ways and challenging their beliefs, loyalties, and desires. So the line between Nar and Sim is here blurred in practice in a way that it isn't in theory. Again, the biggest problem with the theory is it thinks that there can only be one thing going on at a time. (And why that is clearly and wholly wrong is something I have an essay idea for.)

However, putting interesting challenges to a player's beliefs and loyalties in their path is by no means stating that you expect a particular outcome to those challenges. If you did, then effectively you'd have a railroad with to some extent pre-scripted results. In fact, in most story's characters don't have mutating beliefs. It's not the normal way a story is written for a character to abandon their basic nature. The 'reader' normally will receive this as bad writing, and will normally lose empathy for the character.

You can usually tell which characters the author intends to have a personality crisis, and in which areas when a character is introduced. That's because usually the character whose beliefs are going to evolve over the course of the story are the ones introduced with fundamental contradictions in their character's beliefs that will have to be resolved once the character is placed in crisis. Bilbo is introduced to the reader as someone chosen to go on a heroic adventure, who is a coward. Only his pride initially is the major motivation for pretending to be brave, though he isn't. He just doesn't want people to think badly of him. And this is going to have to be resolved one way or the other over the course of the story. Ultimately the contradictions are resolved and Bilbo becomes almost purely brave and humble - at which point the character becomes stable and basically resists any temptation to change that thereafter comes along. Likewise, when Han Solo is introduced, he's introduced as a cocky criminal who over the course of the movie is placed in heroic situations. At the end of the movie, he has to choose which path to continue. That's a contradiction that has to be resolved.

Generally, the reader 'hopes' that the conflict will be resolved favorably in the case of a sympathetic protagonist, and is surprised (and in some cases even disappointed) when the conflict is resolved favorably in the case of a non-sympathetic character. Author's usually deal with this problem by having the non-sympathetic character redeem themselves only in death.

But it's not the case that we know ahead of time which way contradictions are going to be a resolved, and its likewise not the case that every character needs to change in this fashion. The character without contradictions we don't expect to change. There is nothing about their character that is compelling that change. Instead, particularly if the character is heroic, we expect to see their character validated. If we see changes in their basic nature driven by challenges they face, they become tragic characters and we certainly don't expect every hero to become a tragic hero - nor is there any particular reason why they should.

If a character is playing an honorable Bushido and has no contradictions in his character, I would never expect that either the player or the GM expects his character to be anything other than a paragon honorable Bushido and that every challenge thrown at him would do anything other than give that character a moment to shine and prove his worth. If a player signaled an intention to play a character that evolved, I'd expect them to do so by stating character traits that were in tension - greedy and honorable, for example. That signals an intention to be placed in situations where you have to choose between the two traits, and that is also well and good.

I'm sorry, but I don't see your Paladin as very Paladin-y. I'd be disappointed in the play. While I fully agree regarding your understanding of the word tolerance, because tolerance is actually a sort of mercy, and mercy a sort of love - I wouldn't expect a Paladin to actually have to come to that belief, nor would I expect them as a paragon of virtue, to do anything but get wiser. A Paladin without tolerance would be LN, and not LG. A Paladin that fails to show tolerance is fallen or falling, and this is a typical trajectory we see in characters destined for that fate - noble but contradictorily also intolerant. But wisdom would not mean compromising, nor does tolerance actually mean compromise, indifference, negligence, or weakness. That isn't to say necessarily that I see your Paladin as a non-Paladin at this point, but whether I would depends on whether he's come to some belief in the utility or necessity of evil. Your outline doesn't touch on that sufficiently to judge.

It seems obvious to me, because Sim tends to be poorly disposed to the situation being deliberately manipulated in order to present obstacles to the character. This is a technique for making a story, not for exploring an imagined world; the world warps in order to make the story happen. This tends to be anathema (for good, internally consistent reasons) for games not deliberately run to promote a Nar agenda.

I agree regarding the difference between the two approaches you describe here. I disagree that Nar and Sim imply differences in how a character is played or what is expected of a character in play. Either equally can expect evolution of a character, and neither necessarily expects a particular outcome. Nar neither expects cowards to become brave, nor does it expect Paladins to necessarily fail. Nar is not invested in how the story happens, only that a story does happen. Claiming that the story is only good if Paladins necessarily fail is not a position on how to play RPGs, but a position on the meaning of life itself and as such is more akin to having an 'alignment' (IRL) than it is to a particular approach to playing a game.

 

[Celebrim]

It is not true that this contract that you will play a character that has whatever traits you label the character with, however you label the character, is inherent in roleplaying....

However, . . . if [the GM] feels the player is changing a Belief to wriggle out of a difficult situation and not as part of character growth, he may delay the change until a time that he sees as appropriate.

It would appear your own evidence contradicts your theory that the contract to play your character doesn't exist in Burning Wheel. At best you could state that Burning Wheel expects all characters to have contradictory and conflicting initial beliefs, which will be resolved in some fashion through play. That is, it explicitly exists as an engine for creating a very specific sort of story. However I disagree that it lacks the expectation that the player will play the character, and further that this expectation that all characters are conflicted is in any way required of all nar approaches, much less that Burning Wheel requiring all characters to be conflicted in any way justifies Edwards claim in his essay.

Seriously, pemerton, one of us is going to have to block the other one if this keeps up. We are both too damn sure of our own beliefs, and I know that yours read like poorly considered nonsense to me, and I suspect you must think the same of me. I take no real joy in discussing or debating anything with you, and half the time I have no idea how you get from A to B. Moreover, I'm not sure either of us has content that we share that is of any use to the other.

 

[Umbran]

If you don't intend to abide by your traits, don't bother writing them down, because what the heck do they mean in that case anyway?

I'm going to try to inject something that might be useful.

You write them down for several reasons that amount overall to the fact that you can't observe change if you don't know the initial state. Drama, in a nutsell, is about going from A to B, so you have to know where A is.

Moreover, it is less that you don't intend to abide by your traits, and is rather more that since play is not pre-determined, you don't know which ones will change in what way, and their interactions impact the course of play. If you don't write them down, you don't have anything to play with!

This might be best seen in a game called "Odyssey: Journey and Change". Some might call it questionably a role-playing game, and as much or more a story-telling game, but it still has the relevant bits for this discussion. The character is defined by a number of two-word traits, and in the course of play you will likely remove and replace those words. At any given moment, you abide by the list, but action then forces you to change the list.

We are both too damn sure of our own beliefs, and I know that yours read like poorly considered nonsense to me, and I suspect you must think the same of me.

If you are not coming into the discussion to *learn*, then there's not much point in discussing. And certainly, if you are not enjoying it, you should stop. There is no point scoring - there will be no "loss" if you fail to respond to a post, and the other guy gets the last word.

As for the latter, I think that's at least in part an issue of how your writing styles interact. You both get very wordy, and tend to wander over topics - as a third party, at least, it becomes difficult to figure out what points either of you are trying to make much of the time. You also both tend to get very theoretical, and it is not always clear if the things you two seem deeply concerned with are really issues in practical play for anyone other than yourselves. You both seem to be strongly purists, and I am not at all convinced real play follows either of your prescriptions tightly enough to support your positions.