What is the point of GM's notes?

[Emerikol]

I am currently running a game that does not feature protagonism. I am doing this willingly, because I also enjoy this kind of game. This should, absolutely, put paid to this very specious statement. It isn't about defining a term so that it represents my preferred mode of play -- it cannot be this because I'm currently, willingly, playing a game that this term, which I argue for, is not represented at all.

You are so not understanding me that you think this is meaningful.

The continued argument is just a veiled ad hom -- you aren't addressing the arguments I've made, but instead cast this as intentional use of a loaded term by someone trying to denigrate your playstyle. This is absolutely false -- I learned to play in your style, and have fond memories of it. It isn't a stranger to me, even if I've largely moved on and adopted different play. I have zero reason to denigrate that play. I do have reason to promote other approaches, though, which is often characterized by you as denigration of your play, as if other forms of play somehow discount your own. It's a silly defensive posture you adopt in these discussion, an approach that this is war, and any ground given, even to a term that describes play you dislike because it means you can't use it to describe your play, must be fought without quarter. It's silly. Here, people have a term that clearly describes a type of play where the PCs are protagonized in all ways -- the game is entirely focused on the PC's dramatic need, thus maximizing every moment to be about the PCs. A style of play you've clearly said you dislike. And yet, you're fighting to have this term defined in a way so that even Monopoly features it (choice made there develop into emergent play, and a story is told). I mean, cool.

From now on, protagonism on my end will be described as badwrongfunveryterrible play. Badwrongfunveryterrible play is where the game is focused on the dramatic needs of the PCs.

There is no ad hominem. I just think you are abusing a term so if anything the term should be the offended party. ;-) I've suggested another term and am willing to accept the acronymn. DNFP.

 

[Umbran]

My main expectation is the generation of further discourse. But if there is a case to be made for multiple protagonists, which I have never really seen presented before this thread...

Yes, well, that's a problem. Because, we need to set the lofty authorities aside for a moment and remember the practicalities of a game - at your table, you have a collection of players, who, broadly speaking, all deserve to be protatgonists. If your definition of "protagonist" only allows for one, then a bunch of people at the table are getting kinda shafted by your model.

In your Session Zero, do you have the group define who is playing the one single protagonist of the campaign?

...then I'm sure such analytical work has already been done in the respective fields of fiction analysis.

You realize that we are not speaking about mathematics, or hard sciences - there is no singular right or wrong. There are, at best, merely different frameworks of thinking that may illuminate aspects of fiction. Authority, at best, points us at models that we may find useful.

I question the utility of a single-protagonist model for general tabletop RPG play.

 

[Lanefan]

What do you literally do as a GM to foster protagonism? How do your notes help or hinder this?

:::: I design the setting and run the game. Isn't that enough?

My notes, along with the game rules, help me design/build the setting and run the game in a consistent manner.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I would disagree completely that a world is protagonist or not. Play certainly is, but the world? I dont see a compelling argument there. I also think that your argument seems to only account for a single PC when that isnt the usual. Dramatic needs have to be worked as a set, not as a single thing taken out of context. I'd agree that game structure is key here, for sure, but that's a seperate thing IMO and something that can be deployed, or not, in many different systems and settings.

I've focused on one PC for simplicity of argument. Having to constantly talk about multiple PCs just inflated word count and confusion and doesn't improve the discussion. But, yes, you can have multiple PCs worth of dramatic needs -- expand my points to cover this and they don't change.

As for the world, take any of the published settings. None of them engage protagonism badwrongfunveryterrible play. Why? Because they were written entirely without regard to what PCs would be playing in them. Can a GM make changes to enable badwrongfunveryterrible play? Sure, but that's a conscious decision to incorporate the PC's dramatic needs into the game. And if the GM pushes back on a PC dramatic need, other that for reasons it violated established fiction or genre conventions, then the GM is not engaging the PC but asking the PC to change to engage the GM's prepared material. This is not badwrongfunveryterrible play. Even if the player can, later, make meaningful choices in play through their PCs.

To put it a different way, it's like the difference between scene framing and resolution. Protagonism Badwrongfunveryterrible play is about the framing, whereas you're talking about what happens in the resolution.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yes, well, that's a problem. Because, we need to set the lofty authorities aside for a moment and remember the practicalities of a game - at your table, you have a collection of players, who, broadly speaking, all deserve to be protatgonists. If your definition of "protagonist" only allows for one, then a bunch of people at the table are getting kinda shafted by your model.

In your Session Zero, do you have the group define who is playing the one single protagonist of the campaign?



You realize that we are not speaking about mathematics, or hard sciences - there is no singular right or wrong. There are, at best, merely different frameworks of thinking that may illuminate aspects of fiction. Authority, at best, points us at models that we may find useful.

I question the utility of a single-protagonist model for general tabletop RPG play.

I see my arguments that went with simplicity over complexity have resulted in a broader misunderstanding. Yes, all PCs will have dramatic needs met in a game that features protagonism badwrongfunveryterrible play. I was using a shorthand to talk about the simplest example to try and get the concept across rather than deal with how independent scene framing techniques are often necessary when you have multiple PCs, or how you can deal with even conflicting dramatic goals among PCs.

 

[Lanefan]

No, else we're back to Monopoly featuring protagonism. To use my prior example, Infinity Wars features Iron Man making choices, which drive the emergent story, but he is not the protagonist of that film, Thanos is. That story is entirely about Thanos meeting his dramatic needs, his goals, and the trials and tribulations he faces along the way to realizing them.

Yet even with all that, Thanos is still at all times the ANtagonist; the villain. Like any good story with a well-rounded villain, Infinity War gives us a good look into his motivations, background etc., but that doesn't make him anything more than a better-fleshed-out antagonist.

A more interesting case is Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. In the OT, Vader is all antagonist all the time until a final act of redemption at the end. But in the prequels, Anakin goes from protagonist in TPM to villain (and thus antagonist) in Sith, even though his character is what drives the story. (or one could argue he's an antagonist all the way through, we just don't realize it at first)

Assuming typical heroic-PC play, the PCs are almost always the continuing protagonists and whatever opposition the GM provides are the often-short-lived antagonists.

 

[Ovinomancer]

You are so not understanding me that you think this is meaningful.

You've tried to cast people using protagonism as 1) strong proponents of a specific approach to play, 2) selecting this term because it represents play they like and is absent from play they don't, and 3) do so specifically because the term is loaded and therefore denigrates the play they aren't strong advocates for.

All of these fail to the simple point that I a) use this term, b) also enjoy and play in a way that this term does not describe.

Further, the definition of protagonism is the championing of a cause or idea. Like, say, the championing of the PC's dramatic needs in an RPG? This would involve making the game about those dramatic needs.

There is no ad hominem. I just think you are abusing a term so if anything the term should be the offended party. ;-) I've suggested another term and am willing to accept the acronymn. DNFP.

You do realize that half of the arguments against protagonism badwrongfunveryterrible play focus directly on the argument that play focuses on PC dramatic needs when they get to try to pursue their own goals, when this is not at all what is being described by protagonism badwrongfunveryterrible play? Your suggestion of terms invites more disagreement than is purports to solve.

 

[Manbearcat]

Nope, reversed. Infinity War is entirely about the dramatic needs of Thanos. Heck, the filmmakers tell you this at the end, even, when the splash says that Thanos will return. This is an intentional design of this film, and has been talked about both in critical analysis and by the filmmakers. Thanos is the protagonist.

Absolutely.

Thanos is the protagonist (just like Strahd).

When every_other_character in the entire movie shares a dramatic need that begins and ends with "We/I need to stop Thanos(!)", you know who your protagonist is (even if you append a "so we/I can..." to the end of that, its irrelevant if its all implied and backgrounded/offscreen entirely).

Now consider the thematic questions/doubts in Thor Ragnarok.

"From where does power come?"

"Where does home reside?"

These were answered emphatically (and beautifully crafted) and they weren't answered via Helga-as-protagonist (she was clearly the antagonist).

 

[Umbran]

Yes, all PCs will have dramatic needs met in a game that features protagonism badwrongfunveryterrible play.

Thank you. Good to know.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yet even with all that, Thanos is still at all times the ANtagonist; the villain. Like any good story with a well-rounded villain, Infinity War gives us a good look into his motivations, background etc., but that doesn't make him anything more than a better-fleshed-out antagonist.

A more interesting case is Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. In the OT, Vader is all antagonist all the time until a final act of redemption at the end. But in the prequels, Anakin goes from protagonist in TPM to villain (and thus antagonist) in Sith, even though his character is what drives the story. (or one could argue he's an antagonist all the way through, we just don't realize it at first)

Assuming typical heroic-PC play, the PCs are almost always the continuing protagonists and whatever opposition the GM provides are the often-short-lived antagonists.

Villain =/= antagonist. Hero =/= protagonist. These terms describe the role in the story, not the moral or ethic bents of the characters. For example, Humbert Humbert is the protagonist of Lolita, and he's an absolutely despicable example of human garbage.