Yudhishthira’s Dice

There has recently been a lot of chat in the blog and forum-o-sphere about the ways that stories get made in RPGs, and who is responsible for what and how player and character decisions influence the development of the story. Some of the posts that were the most influential for me in this area are: Jesse’s thread about Players and Character Failure and John’s comments therein, specifically “Even if all the conflict resolutions are decided rather than randomized, you can still have emergent story from the complex interaction of different players’ inputs.”, and Robin’s article about Linearity in RPG Plots*. The mother of it all was Vincent’s post in which he discuses Not knowing what the story means or what genre it is until after you’re done.

At this point I’m starting to see the development of three different models or genres for story development through game play. They are the linear, the gestalt, and the emergent. These three things are not fully separate from each other, but rather form a continuum that individual games infinitely shade back and forth between. I’m introducing the terms not to box things, but to allow people to talk about what they are and are not looking for in game.

Linear play is that in which the GM or other central figure has the primary control of the plot and its development, from background information to the direction and evolution during play. Extreme linear play is the all known and all feared railroading, in which the PCs are able to interact with the color of the game, but are fundamentally unable to alter the plot or its development in any structurally significant way.

Gestalt play is that in which the players (including GM) have enough joint authority over important choices to change the game into something none of them would have created alone. This is where I see John Kim’s ideas about the complex interactions of all the player choices creating a story that is radically different than any player would have made alone. Because all the players have some say, and because the possible number of those interactions and decisions grows exponentially throughout the game, the result of having players who can make real choices will create something that is greater and different than the sum of its parts. The result of gestalt play will be a story that none of the players could/would have told alone, but that was still guided directly by the decisions the group made and the story they wanted to tell.

Emergent play, otoh, is play that comes when the players all have the ability to make choices, as with Gestalt play, but when those choices, either alone nor as an aggregate, do not have the ability to solely determine the story. This is the kind of play that Vincent was talking about when he talked about not even knowing what story you were telling until after you had told it. In the farther out cases of Emergent play you could have situations in which everyone OOCly agrees that the story really should go one way, that it would be the best thing, but because of some IC conflict of interests (for example, other things could cause it) a contest is called that results in a radically different outcome than that which everyone thought should happen. The guy that obviously was the hero of the story turns out to be a bastard and then gets killed, or the couple that was really in really real love ends up broken up and not speaking to each other, or any other of a multitude of outcomes that weren’t foreseen.

Obviously all of these things will move in and out of each other, depending on the style of play you’re pursuing. For example, Robin is arguing that a linear clue line can still lead to gestalt story, because the decisions and actions, rather than the solving of the mystery in point form, are where the story comes from. This is where the line between “linear” and “gestalt” starts to blurr — even in the most linear GM driven stories the PCs usually get to influence color. At what point does that color influence become actual gestalt play? For me it seems that it only happens when the actual play and story are changed — so in Robin’s case it could be, but in the cast of the GM who says, “Well you got to decide she was a red-head” it probably isn’t.

There are some clear places where gestalt and emergent play differ. Many freeform games with no GM roll and no randomization offer clear gestalt play, as everyone has joint authority but the complexity of the game comes from the combination of choices, not from surprises to everyone. OTOH, there are some games in which you do not even know who the protagonists are until play is well underway — the players don’t know that just because they are playing a character (if they are playing a single character, which isn’t always the case in this type of game) that it will turn out their character is important to to the story. It may end up being that their character will only be supporting cast — even if they’re playing lots of characters all of them may end up being only support, no matter how much they wanted to be the hero.

Obviously, however, most cases fall somewhere between these extremes. When you all are making strong gestalt type choices, but still have random task resolution, where does the line get drawn between what you’re all choosing and what randomly comes out of the game due to surprises from the dice? And how different are the choices that come from pre-meditation and the choices that come from reaction in actually determining the story?

I think it is worth noting, though it should be unnecessary, that none of these modes are inherently superior to the others. Not even the linear mode is a bad thing, as Robin argues in his article. They do, however, give radically different benefits and styles of play and that should probably be kept in mind when playing (or designing, I suppose). If you want a game where the characters go from point to point chewing scenery and mocking genre tropes, emergent play is probably not your best choice. If, otoh, you want a story that surprises everyone and sparks off revelations and decisions that would never spark without the sudden changes and unexpected developments then a linear style isn’t your best tool.

P.S. Because Fang brought this up: let me say the above only really applies to games in which most of the players are trying to tell a story. Those that are just trying to play a game, or even just play characters without concern if what they do creates story in any way, will probably not find these terms useful. Nor do I think they should be applied to such play unless those playing find it useful to do so. In short, if you aren’t telling a story, don’t worry about how you’re telling a story.

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*I did a post not to long ago in which I argued a position similar to Robin’s, but with the twist that in a typical mystery the story is about the crime and its solving, and not about the characters as much. If anyone knows where I made that post, I’d appreciate a pointer to it because I can’t find it now to save my life.