Thoughts from the King

[subplotkudzu]

Recent discussions here brought to mind the writing philosophy of Stephen King, as discussed in his memoir "On Writing". Here's one relevant bit:

You may wonder where the plot is in all this. The answer is - my answer anyway - is nowhere. … I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren't compatible.

And another

When, during the course of an interview for The New Yorker, I told the interviewer (Marc Singer) that I believed stories are found things, like fossils in the ground, he said he didn't believe me. I replied that that was fine, as long as he believed that I believed it. And I do. Stories aren't souvenir tee-shorts or GameBoys. Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground as intact as possible.

…Plot is a far bigger tool, the writer's jackhammer. …Plot is, I think, the good writer's last resort and the dullard's first choice. The story that results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored.

And finally

I want to put a group of characters…in some sort of predicament and then watch then try to work their way free. My job isn’t to help them work their way free, or manipulate them to safety - those are jobs which require the noisy jackhammer of plot - but to watch what happens and then write it down.

The situation comes first. The characters - always flat and unfeatured to begin with - come next. Once these things are fixed in my mind, I being to narrate. I often have an idea of what the outcome may be, but I have never demanded of a set of characters that they do things my way. On the contrary, I want them to do things their way. In some instances, the outcome is what I visualized. In most, however, it's something I never expected.

He then goes on to give examples from the writing of Misery with the admission that he had intended it as a short story but the protagonist turned out to be so capable at surviving that it turned into a novel - he just kept excavating more of the story.

Now, I don’t care whether King is correct about writing or not (so please, don't start), but I think his comments have a lot to say about Game Mastering. The similarities are obvious: you put a group of undefined-at-the-start characters in a situation and watch what happens next. The characters will develop more background, more character and more ability as the situation progresses. For some things is either a formal experience process, logical extrapolation of Didn't I Mention skills, based on the granularity of the system. For others it is just the usual development of character personality under the player's direction.

The preparation for the situation can be extensive or not (King mentions how the entire unfolding back-story in Bag of Bones was developed as he wrote the central character discovering it, rather than having it developed in advance) but since the audience for any game is larger than just the GM more definition of the situation is likely required. It’s not essential - I've run whole games with no idea what was going to happen next and no stats for the opposition, but for some games the situation at the start needs to be pretty well defined. The GM might find it very handy to know the villains goals, motivations, plans, resources and so on if he doesn’t feel comfortable just making them up in play, but that's still not a Plot as King describes it.

And there we have a pretty good simulation of reality. The characters act, the situation responds (or vice versa) continue until we reach an ending.

Now is Plot really a jackhammer? I don't know. Genre fiend that I am, I see plot as being one of those ultrasound density mapping machine. My players and I all like this bit of the type of story we're excavating, and we want to make sure we get it out intact. Bang goes the plot gun, giving us an outlay of the story where it sits in the ground and we happily go after the pieces we like. Large hunks of Old Lives, Old Civilizations were developed this way, and the Star Trek game even advocates having your endgame in place at the start and leading the players to it. I don't think I went quite that far, but I did plot 1/2 to 3/4 of each session - everything that revealed the situation - and tried to have at least one workable outcome. Sometimes the players used that, but sometimes they didn't, but everyone knew the types of the problems they were likely to encounter and the types of solutions the setting preferred.

Then there are discussions of theme (which whswhs discussed recently) and imagery, but those are worthy of a separate post, I think.

Comments

[kriz1818.livejournal.com]

(so please, don't start)

Spoilsport! 8-D

But seriously, the thing about a novel is that however its story was developed, by the end it has to *look* plotted, because a bunch of random events aren't a story. King's novels *appear* strongly plotted - at least as far as I've read into any of them - because the human mind requires some sort of pattern, and people won't much like a story that doesn't have one. Or at least the appearance of one.

Gaming is a lot messier because it's all a first draft, and it may be that one reason the group resists player-led play is that it's harder to develop a useful pattern than to find one. I think.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

King's argument against that - based on my read of his book, anyway - is that you're saying they need to be a strong story, which his books have. Plot, from his perspective, is defining the story because certain things have to happen to reach the ending. When you're writing to a plot, you're forcing the story rather than uncovering it. That's when you have things that don't make sense, because you're using the plot to hammer the story into a shape it might not have. His found story will always flow logically, because it's a structure of X does this so Y does this based on previous behavior. The human mind is used to that - it's less used to people falling in love at first sight because they need to if the story is to continue.

Getting back to the point, gaming can be the same way: I as GM can flow logically from point A to B to C based on what I know of the setting based on what you do with the characters, or I can have a set timeline that says that at midnight all of the PC will be bound and captured as sacrifices, then saved when the intelligent mice you befriended earlier arrive to chew through your bonds. So therefore you have to meet the mice, befriend the mice, all get captured, etc. That's my lovely plot, and I'll be damned if you messy player characters will wreck with it. LOVE THE MICE, DAMN YOU!

I'm not sure I see how a player-directed game would have less of a pattern. On a certain level the pattern would be clearer to the players, as they're defining it actively rather than reactively. Can you explain? Do you really think it's easier to figure out what someone else is doing than figuring out what you want to do?

RPGs are clearly a first draft, however, and as GM I can't count that the players will notice my clever imagery and themes - I do have to make sure they're experiencing a story however, whether I plotted it or not.

[kriz1818.livejournal.com]

He's using a different meaning of "plot" than I'm thinking of, then. To me, plot is the structure that supports the story. In a written work, if you don't arrange the elements in good order and keep things well paced, the story will fail. Yes, it can be done badly, but when it's done well (no violations of character integrity, not relying too much on coincidence, no needing somebody to be stupid in service of the plot) the thing works.

A GM-directed game is a lot like reading a novel, in that the player/reader is relatively passive, accepting what's presented and building her version of the author's pattern in her head. It's what avid readers like all of us are trained to do, really.

Player-directed would be more like the players being writers, which is not all that easy, especially as it's a collaboration. I suspect it needs more planning and OOC conferring than you've assumed; you're *used* to developing material both in planning stages and on the fly, and for the most part, we're not.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I don't doubt that King is using a different definition, since by his 'found artifact' method the story does not need a structure to support it. The story simply is, and it can be interesting or not. By using it, he doesn't have to worry about violations of character integrity, overuse of coincidence, charcter stupidity, etc. because the story already has a natural flow. It might mean that he will never produce great symbolic or thematic literature, but that's not his goal. And as a GM, it can't be mine either - as you pointed out, all I get is a first draft.

Here's the conclusion of the paragraph from the third quote.

For a suspense novelist, this is a great thing. I am, after all, not just the novel's creator but its first reader. And if I'm not able to guess with any accuracy how the damned thing is going to turn out, even with my inside knowledge of coming events, I can be pretty sure of keeping the reader in a state of page turning anxiety. And why worry about the ending anyway? Why be such a control freak? Sooner or later every story comes out somewhere.

Now obviously I'm not a suspense novelist, but that's also a pretty good indicating of entering a state of Flow while running a game session. I may know what outside events are coming, but I don't know what's going to happen. This can be a hell of a fun ride.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea of the players in a GM-directed game being passive. I don't think you realize how many variables there are in that GM-direction once play starts (the actions of 4-6 players, plus the randomizers). The players, I hope, feel like they have a sizable impact on the story, even if they aren't the ones who set the original objectives. If the players were passive then the Arabian Nights game would only have lasted 2 sessions, the pirate captain wouldn't have been redeemed, and any of a number of other things that occurred only as a reaction to the players. As GM I provided the direction (The princess has been kidnapped by a wizard! How do you rescue her?), but the players uncovered the story.

Player-direction does require more planning and both IC and OOC conferring than you've done to date. (I think the next post I put up will be some sort of thought experiment on that.) But the effect this has on the game in play as a player is probably smaller than you think.

[kriz1818.livejournal.com]

The thing is, King's doing subconsciously what other writers do consciously. Perhaps the key point in this discussion is that in an RPG, maybe the GM and players *can't* do this entirely subconsciously - because of that first draft thing. Or they should all at least be aware of what they're trying to do.

I also feel a certain uneasiness ... what if the players 'write' themselves into a corner, the way we did in the Psi Men game last time? That's where the OOC discussion is important, to keep us from totally messing up the story, whatever it is. I have a book about plotting that describes some stories as "trailing off into frustrated scraps of revision." That's not the kind of gaming experience I'd like, in the very limited time I have for it.

I can see that you're right about the Arabian Nights game, but then how was that game *not* player-directed? Do you see player-directed as meaning that *we* come up with goals like "rescue kidnapped princess"?

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the key point in this discussion is that in an RPG, maybe the GM and players *can't* do this entirely subconsciously - because of that first draft thing. Or they should all at least be aware of what they're trying to do.

I think it can be done subconsciously, as long as its on a limited scale. I ran many games in HS that were vaguely Lankhmarian pastiches with a pair of rogues in a fantasy world city. The players and I would sit down, I gaven them a brief description of the city at the outset - where the rich quarters were, what times their gates closed, what the poor quarters were like and so on - and then asked them what they were doing. Whatever direction they went, I made up something in front of them that would hopefully catch their interest. If it didn't they moved on, often revisiting NPCs who they had meet previously.

They ran con schemes, robbed houses, got into a vendetta with a local crime boss, followed treasure maps into the surrounding jungle and swamp, hired on as mercenaries, battled undead in the sewers and so on. There was no greater plot, but one of them did get a price on his head and spent a few sessions in disguise to keep from being killed as he scraped up money to hire an assassin to kill the assassin tailing him. The environment changed via their actions, as a magical battle wiped out shantytown at the edge of the poor quarter's gates.

There were stories a'plenty, but nothing that I would call a plot, and certianly no theme or greater goal.

Of course, if we're trying for something grander than that, you are right that the players need to know this and know what they're aiming for. Continued in next post.

[kriz1818.livejournal.com]

Now that you mention it, I don't think it ever occurred to me that we might *not* do something "grand."

For this, I think I'll blame ... YOU. Okay, and me, because if expecting grand overarching plots didn't work well for me, I wouldn't enjoy gaming with you so much.

Of course we've done short-term games that didn't have a chance to develop grand plot archs. Would I want to do something like that long-term? I don't think so ... it's not like we're in high school and with all the time in the world.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

This can be player or GM directed. For example - the story is about a group of thieves in a decadent city-state trying to forge a small guild.

We could have gotten there because you players all made up rogue characters and I responded with the city, because I pitched the city and you all made up rogues rather than wizards and mercenaries, or because I told you that the game was about a group of thieves forging a guild.

As play begins it could be that you guys get together and try to figure out what to do, with the first few sessions being me showing the corrupt but stupid nature of the guards in your part of the city. Eventually you settle on making a guild/protection racket that actually provides protection, a sort of chaotic good shadow government. I'll have the authorities respond differently to you based on that than if you had decided to keep doing short jobs and staying under the radar until you could make 'the big score' and move into the wealthier quarters.

Alternately, it could be that I have an NPC merchant hire you to provide him and his shops with protection, and to get revenge on a certain brutal guard. Said NPC keeps giving you new tasks that both increase his profits and improve the security of the area. You inherit these when he is killed by some mysterious force. We're at the same place - you're the chaotic good shadow government of a part of the city. In the former the players directed the action. In the latter, the GM did.

Once you are the shadow government, you might decide to expand your territory in the face of a rival guild. That guild has strange powers at their disposal, but you manage to gain enough information to learn that they're backed by a group of vampires. If you don't decide to expand your territory, it's possible they'll come after you, but the tenor of events will shift.

Or the people under your shadow government could keep coming to you with takes of other friends and neighbors in trouble. Your territory expands naturally as you deal with each new problem, but there is more evidence that your rival guild might have been responsible for your patron's death. Infiltrating their base to capture a kidnapped child reveals that they're backed by... you guessed it. Now we're in the same place, but in the former it was based on player decisions, in the latter GM direction.

How much of this is setting and forced plot? I knew as soon as I wrote decadent city-state that the upper echelons of the state had been embraced by vampires who used the guard and the other guilds to keep the population cowed. In a player directed game if you never crossed certain lines or garnered certain attentions it would never come up - you could make the big score, move into the rich quarter and live a few years of peeled grapes and lox (Or whatever) without ever finding it out.

Bit if it were a GM directed game, damn right I wanted you to Robin Hood your way into a fight with the centuries old master vampire inside the palaces silk and knives throne room. The question is which are you more interested in playing? Till now you have all trusted me to come up with an engaging GM directed story taking you from the Sagan observatory to the Klingon base in the heart of the Burning Nebula, but you could just as easily do it more on your own and still have ended up there.

I also feel a certain uneasiness ... what if the players 'write' themselves into a corner, the way we did in the Psi Men game last time?

That happened because of a player/GM disconnect as to who was steering the boat (and a bunch of other reasons). But sometimes in the story some of the heroes die, and the group has to eke out survival as a win.

Last part, I promise

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

That's where the OOC discussion is important, to keep us from totally messing up the story, whatever it is.

If you guys are the ones directing the story, absolutely. If it's me directing the story, then you have less chance of totally messing it up.

I have a book about plotting that describes some stories as "trailing off into frustrated scraps of revision." That's not the kind of gaming experience I'd like, in the very limited time I have for it.

That's a great quote. I think all of us would like to avoid that! We can revise (well, ret-con) and have done so when something didn't work out right at all. Since the goal is for all of us to be happy playing the game, we all have some voice in the outcome, and some in the direction.

I can see that you're right about the Arabian Nights game, but then how was that game *not* player-directed? Do you see player-directed as meaning that *we* come up with goals like "rescue kidnapped princess"?

Pretty much. I hope the thieves guild example made things a little clearer on the differences between the two styles in my mind. (There are greater levels of player direction, where the PCs and GM sit down and hash out a 'series pitch' that would be 'forming a mostly good thieves guild in a city state corrupted by vampires' where all aspects of the game are on the table at the start. That runs a counter to the prospectus structure, but I have heard that it is viable.

Re: Last part, I promise

[kriz1818.livejournal.com]

Yes, the thieves' guild example really helped me understand what you mean - thank you for taking the time.

And now that I understand better what you're talking about, I'm getting more intrigued than alarmed by the player-directed idea. FYI.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

A few years ago I interviewed Vernor Vinge for Prometheus, of which I was then the editor. I asked him some questions about one of his fictional settings. As he answered them, I realized that he was speaking of them as having properties and historical events that he had not yet discovered, but that he could speculate about, as an astronomer might speculate about whether a given star has terrestrial planets; he was not speaking of them as things that he had already decided, or that he could just decide. This gave me a sense of "fictional world as discovered." I suppose that makes sense: Vinge is a mathematician, and mathematicians (a) deal entirely with fictional worlds in their working lives and (b) regard what they are doing as discovery rather than creation/invention.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

That's a very interesting point. I have gotten a similar impression from MAR Barker's Tekumel setting, which fitting considering Barker's own scientific training as (I believe) a historian and anthropologist. The long development of Tekumel can be seen as him uncovering more about a culture has found but did not create.

Bob Dushay (the curator of the Museum of Role-Playing Games) has an ongoing struggle trying to develop a set of functional mechanics for a Tekumel game, and one of of his goals is to excavate out someone else's setting. There are consistent concerns about whether this or that mechanic, while they might be elegant, actually represents the 'truth' of Tekumel. He is of course hindered by working one step removed - a university professor working from someone else's field notes.