"Narrative Options" mechanical?

[Imaro]

I'm confused as to how these two things can possibly be compatible. If you ignore the character attributes, how can you possibly have a clear idea "how the character would react"? Surely, the nature and personality of the character is informed by what is on the sheet, and what goes onto the sheet is informed by the nature and personality of the character, no? The lifelong pacifist and charity worker who cannot aid the poor, sick or dying but who has trained to master level with a range of weapons just isn't a very plausible character. What a person learns and what they are good at says a lot about who they are, typically, I find.

The argument was about how knowing your hit points were low caused a player to act on that knowledge even though his character wouldn't know that he could be killed by a single blow and would act differently... Tuft gave a clear example where that did not in fact cause him to act out of character... Does that clear things up?

 

[pemerton]

The argument was about how knowing your hit points were low caused a player to act on that knowledge even though his character wouldn't know that he could be killed by a single blow and would act differently... Tuft gave a clear example where that did not in fact cause him to act out of character... Does that clear things up?

One thing I'm curious about is this: was [MENTION=60045]Tuft[/MENTION]'s character brave or not? On @Ahnenois's view of hit points, the answer is Yes. The charcter knew he(?) was low on "life energy" yet leapt into the fray. On a metagame view of hp, how do we tell?

 

[Balesir]

The argument was about how knowing your hit points were low caused a player to act on that knowledge even though his character wouldn't know that he could be killed by a single blow and would act differently... Tuft gave a clear example where that did not in fact cause him to act out of character... Does that clear things up?

Ah - OK, so just a subset of the "numbers". Now I understand - thanks!

One thing I'm curious about is this: was [MENTION=60045]Tuft[/MENTION]'s character brave or not? On @Ahnenois's view of hit points, the answer is Yes. The charcter knew he(?) was low on "life energy" yet leapt into the fray. On a metagame view of hp, how do we tell?

Well, in the same way that hit points represent luck, star quality and so forth, it would make a certain sort of sense if they represented bravery and "nerve", also. It fits right in with the trope that "you can do anything if you just believe". In that context, running out of hit points represents the point where you simply stop believing.

 

[pemerton]

Well, in the same way that hit points represent luck, star quality and so forth, it would make a certain sort of sense if they represented bravery and "nerve", also. It fits right in with the trope that "you can do anything if you just believe". In that context, running out of hit points represents the point where you simply stop believing.

On that (interesting) take, you can't act in character without regard to the hp number on your sheet.

 

[Tuft]

One thing I'm curious about is this: was [MENTION=60045]Tuft[/MENTION]'s character brave or not? On @Ahnenois's view of hit points, the answer is Yes. The charcter knew he(?) was low on "life energy" yet leapt into the fray. On a metagame view of hp, how do we tell?

Oh, it was not the bravery aspect that was the important one to the anecdote - it was the internal conflict; the big gap between the deeply emotional response and the analytically intellectual wargamer response. The difference between *living* a narrative and *constructing* a narrative, you might say. (Not that the latter response did not have emotions attached too - the mentioned desire to "not rock the boat".)

In interviews with some authors, I had previously heard about characters "coming to life" for them, their personalities, desires, "voices" messing with and derailing the intended plot. I seriously thought it hokey, until I suddenly experienced it myself.

But speaking of brave, note that if you use enough detachment, adopting what I assume is the "pawn stance", you can never be brave in an RPG. You can just throw enough freshly-rolled up characters at a problem until it goes away, Russian Mine-Clearing Style. I guess a "director stance" would be just as detached.

 

[Balesir]

On that (interesting) take, you can't act in character without regard to the hp number on your sheet.

Sure, but I think of that as the default case, anyway, with exceptions (like that pointed out by [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]) from time to time.

But speaking of brave, note that if you use enough detachment, adopting what I assume is the "pawn stance", you can never be brave in an RPG. You can just throw enough freshly-rolled up characters at a problem until it goes away, Russian Mine-Clearing Style. I guess a "director stance" would be just as detached.

I'm not convinced 'stance' is that hard coded. What you are talking about here is taking your own emotional response to events in the fiction, ascribing them to the character and acting on them (I realise it might not be that "mechanical" - at least subjectively - as it happens, but bear with me). That can be done in any stance, although some may correlate less with a tendency to ascribe the emotional response to the character (and, indeed, the focus of concentration and mental state of the player may lead to different emotional responses in different stances - although that seems less certain in this case).

As you say, the example given is not really about "bravery" - it's more a case of outrage/pity overcoming the instinct for self-preservation/character-preservation. Again, though, I think that can happen in any stance (although the precise motivations might vary).

"Bravery", at least to me, is more about a considered decision that the principle at stake is more important than self-preservation. This, too, seems to me to be quite possible in any stance - although the "principle" at stake may well differ from one to another.

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[pemerton]

if you use enough detachment, adopting what I assume is the "pawn stance", you can never be brave in an RPG. You can just throw enough freshly-rolled up characters at a problem until it goes away, Russian Mine-Clearing Style. I guess a "director stance" would be just as detached.

Two responses.

First, you seem to be looking here at the bravery of the player. That's an interesting issue, but I was wondering about the bravery of the PC. If hp are an ingame reality, then a PC knows his/her hp total, and a PC who goes into fight with single digit hp left is indeed brave - even if the player is quite cavalier about loosing that one and brining another "toon" into play.

Whereas if hp are metagame, a PC who goes into combat with low hp could easily, in the fiction, be characterised as happy-go-lucky or overreaching in his/her ambition, even though the player, in playing his/her PC that way, is being quite brave (within the tabletop RPGing context) because (at that table, let's imagine) the costs of losing a PC being quite high (eg you have to start again at 1st level).

Also, as [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] suggested and as I hinted at in a reply upthread to [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION], I think you are being too narrow about director's stance. I know that director's stance is utterly compatible with immersion in character, because I have seen it happen. It is in my view a mistake to associate stances, which are certain logical or conceptual modes of play, with emotions or psyhcological states that people might experience while playing. It is possible to play in actor stance yet be completely detatched and unenthuses; or to play in author or director stance and be fully engaged and immersed in the ingame situation and your PC's interests and concerns within it.

The difference between *living* a narrative and *constructing* a narrative, you might say.

<snip>

In interviews with some authors, I had previously heard about characters "coming to life" for them, their personalities, desires, "voices" messing with and derailing the intended plot. I seriously thought it hokey, until I suddenly experienced it myself.

I don't dispute that these sorts of experiences occur. But they don't make writing a novel any less the construction of a narrative! The novel didn't, in any literal sense, write itself. Likwise for RPGing, it seems to me. Whatever the motivation or causal process, someone who is a reall, flesh-and-blood person had to establish certain propositions ("I'm attacking this hobgoblin; I'm saving that child") as true in the shared fiction.

 

[Imaro]

On that (interesting) take, you can't act in character without regard to the hp number on your sheet.

Again, I disagree... If I am playing a cowardly character, and choose to play him in a consistent way then the number of hit points on my sheet has very little to do with his "nerve"... he is cowardly by nature and will act cowardly most of the time irregardless of hp total. If I play a rash character... do the number of hit points determine how and when I am rash? Perhaps for some but I would posit there are many players who continue to play their character just as rash regardless of his hit point level and it does not in fact inform their decision... the personality of the character they have created does.

 

[Imaro]

Whereas if hp are metagame, a PC who goes into combat with low hp could easily, in the fiction, be characterised as happy-go-lucky or overreaching in his/her ambition, even though the player, in playing his/her PC that way, is being quite brave (within the tabletop RPGing context) because (at that table, let's imagine) the costs of losing a PC being quite high (eg you have to start again at 1st level).

I think you are totally disregarding context and characterization here. You are taking a single incident of the characters behavior with low hit points instead of looking at the behavior patterns of the character. I think if you do, for most people there is a consistency that would allow you to decide if the character was being brave or being happy-go-lucky... or perhaps being rash...

 

[sheadunne]

Any action a character takes is a result of player choice. The player may be attempting to play a consistent character, but it still comes down to what the player chooses to do. These actions can be justified however the player wants, but it's still a choice made by the player. A player can freely say, "It's what my character would do," and they would be entirely correct. It's still a choice by the player. Immersive roleplaying is simply agreeing that "it's what my character would do," is the only acceptable justification for the choices the player makes. It's nothing more than that. It's also no different than agreeing that HP is the only justification for the choices the player makes. They're the same thing, an explanation for why a player chose any particular action for their character. None of these things provide any insight into whether the player has any narrative influence, only that they are involved in the narrative as established by the DM.

So why again are we on this tangent?