IMO audience stance is a very important aspect of play. Ben Lehman has discussed at length & it’s pretty critical to how I view design these days, but is deeply intertwined with all the rest of the ways to be in a game.

Also, in-character as a stance and “deep in character” are not in common parlance now. It seems like they have been subsumed into what’s thought of as “actor stance”. They are all about immersion. I’d recommend reading the Advocacy Faq, Mo.

http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/rgfa/faq_v2/faq0.art

It is interesting to note, although largely irrelevant, that audience stance, part of narrative stance theory, but dropped from Forge stance theory as not being a way in which players act on the game, has been made formally relevant in such games as PTA, and explicitly if informally relevant in others such as DitV.

RGFA was a major locus of rpg theory discussion back in the 90′s.

However, I don’t think you are using RGFA stances, so all that is probably entirely irrelevant. Sorry.

[Although I was never an active participant in RGFA, I am married to Sarah Kahn, so the history of narrative stance theory is rather dear to me.]

I think part of Mo’s point was to say that the way we’ve been commonly looking at the stances (as distinct, non-overlapping activities) is out of date.

Indeed.

The issue Mo is nailing is that folks trained by the social contract of traditional play feel that they don’t have the right to take step 3. They feel cut out of Director stance so don’t think they have the authority to bridge the gap between their own Actor-stance constrained choices, and their Author-stance informed desires.

Absolutely. Now sometimes they still don’t get it even after you said it six times and hit them with a rubber mallet.

I also just hoped to underline the idea that Actor Stance is as much a result of the player’s decisions as anything else in game (granted, constrained by the bounds of IC knowledge). What I was getting to here was to lead into the Pull vs. Push discussion so that I could talk about Pull techiques immersionists can use to author more effectively and buy/win harmony in game.

Lee: Please clarify, what is RFGA? I probably sound like a newb when I ask, but as I said, I didn’t grow out of the Forge. I’m missing your cultural reference.

Joshua: I think part of Mo’s point was to say that the way we’ve been commonly looking at the stances (as distinct, non-overlapping activities) is out of date.

My understanding of the common usage of actor stance includes all of the immersive experience-in-character (of its psychology etc) that Mo talks about. The decisions specified in the glossary are creative decisions about the character, as well as in-character actions. Leaving those out is an artificial division.

Assuming actor stance is just taking on a very specific creative constraint about what you will create in play. But it is a complex, self-interpreted constraint that can be (and was intended) to be dis-empowering.

But what Ben wrote made it crystal clear to me:

Step 1: Author Stance: I want my guy to meet superman.

Step 4: Actor stance: I have to go take care of my poor, widowed aunt.

The issue Mo is nailing is that folks trained by the social contract of traditional play feel that they don’t have the right to take step 3. They feel cut out of Director stance so don’t think they have the authority to bridge the gap between their own Actor-stance constrained choices, and their Author-stance informed desires.

I think a lot of your question also becomes relevant to the discussion in the Push/Pull post. What differentiates pull from inactivity is effort, and so in that case I think the question of responsibility becomes vastly important.

I was just pointing out that there can be different types and levels of responsibility, depending on what you’re wanting out of game. I can see you and I and Ice, for example, getting together and smashing each others mental faces in as part of a game and having a ball. Won’t work with all groups, however. Not even a little.

Indeed!

What’s important to me is that there are, in fact, two things — playing the character (and largely, though not never entirely sucessfully, trying to ignore ephemera like die results, stakes, etc) and playing with, well, “other stuff” (which is divided into several characters — board game mind, GM mind, etc).

And how a game forces you to switch between these mental states (or doesn’t) is, well, important.

Brand, I’m not saying it’s one or the other, and certainly there are a host of reasons to include anyone in any game. Mostly I was just floating the question — what happens to the game when contributions are your responsibility, not a constrained action? What happens when the game is set up with the understanding “you are here to contribute this, that, and the other thing to the collaborative process”?

Because he wants to be? And if he can actually make his synthesis cool, then because we might want him to be?

Now I do believe in responsibility, but as I play with children (like 8 year olds, not 17 year olds, though they are also children…) and learning disabled folks, I may have a different agenda than lots of folks.

Victor is applying Stance to character action when in fact is applies to player action.

Look at the definition: “The person playing a character determines the character’s decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have.” What is Stance about? It is about player decisions about character decisions/actions.

So, yes, I’m applying it to character actions; and I’m applying it to player actions in the same breath… because that is what the definition states!

Well, as I said, if you guys want to use Stance-talk to describe moment-to-moment thoughts as in Ben’s example, by all means do. I don’t think it’s a very good choice of terminology (‘stance’ sounds to me like something more constant) and I don’t think it’s the way it used to be used (which was more about the kind of knowledge you were allowed to use and the kind of power you had, not about the classification of moment-to-moment thoughts), but who really cares? It’s not that important.

Regards,
Victor

I agree with the alarm bells. However, let us turn it around. If it were the GM saying, “I need you to give me something to make this work” would we get the same alarm?

What if, instead of being something said passive-agressivly and only subtextually, it was said outloud.

Because if -anyone- at the table is sitting there sulking because they aren’t getting candy, it is a problem. If, otoh, someone steps up as an adult and says, “I need some help to get to where we both want to be” that’s anything but co-dependant.

stance – the fictional information that a player is allowed to call upon, the fictional elements the player is allowed to affect, and whose priorities the player is expected to follow when proposing statements about the fiction.

Victor, when Mo determines what her character thinks and feels, she is making a statement about the fiction, whether or not this statement is thereafter processed by the System / Lumply Principle. This statement does not ever have to be shared, but even if it is hidden inside her mind, there are rules to it — she’s not supposed to just start imagining fluffy bunnys flying in the air. As such, stance does apply to these statements, because she can and will be making these statements (even if only to herself) from a stance.

Mo, your desire or agenda differs from your characters’, certainly. That you will not make a statement about the fiction that makes your character act contrary to her desires does not slam you into actor stance. Presumably it’s also a part of your agenda that you prefer some realism or continuity of character, and so finding a way to reconcile your player-goals and your character-goals is, as far as I can see, a perfect example of author stance. I don’t see you doing author and actor in parallel, I see you doing author stance, a part of that being a preference for continuity.

As far as going to Metropolis, that the player says “No” that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re doing Actor or Author at that point. It could be either, really. If the player is allowed to perform in author stance, they can, I dunno, accidentally get on a train to Metropolis that they thought was going elsewhere or something. They can see a newspaper with superman pictured and decide that today is the day they go meet the guy. If they make such a statement, then they are taking up author stance, but if they do not, they aren’t necessarily sticking to actor stance.

The only thing that I take a real big issue with is your point three in the superhero example, 3.) Because of 2, I need you to give me reason in game to go and fulfill my desire. This sets off all sorts of bells and whistles in my head, with passive-agressive codependent gamer culture bullshit being dragged into a perfectly enjoyable game. It may just be your phrasing of it, with “I” and “you” involved. Would I need a previously-ratified statement about the fiction from which I can act be accurate?

Overall, I tend to agree with a bit of line from Victor, that ‘stance’ is an increasingly obsolete term. It conflates way the hell too much and assumes even more.