OK Something I have been thinking about a lot, but came to no conclusion.
One of the main drivers of successful fiction is subtext. Research shows that there is a direct positive correlation between the amount of subtext in a movie and its rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
(Here is one person’s take on subtext) http://www.thescienceofstory.blogspot.com/2011/05/subtext-most-critical-tool-in-story.html
AW emulates subtext in the “Read a person” move. Which is awesome. But is is still just an emulation, because players have to make their characters break the 4th wall to make the move. step out of character to make the move.
So here is my dilemma/challenge to the community:
☻Write a GM move/principle that makes the players (PC’s and GM) use subtext.
☻Write a player move that makes the players use subtext.
If a good rule makes the players say interesting stuff, and subtext is the most interesting stuff there is (not) to say, then this should be a worthy endeavour…
I don’t see how any characters break the fourth wall to Read a Sitch or Person
I am with Alfred Rudzki
+Alfred Rudzki In a way you are right, I worded it badly. What I should have said was that the players have to step out of character in order to do the move. The players say something about the characters outside of the fiction that the characters perceive in a totally different way within the fiction. So subtext is simulated, not used.
Anyway, any ideas on my question?
* Consider the depths, describe only the surface
* Don’t spell it out
When you consider the gap between two or more known things, say what that gap holds and roll +WIS:
10+ You nailed it. take +1 forward when acting on that knowledge.
7-9 Ask the GM how far off the mark you are.
6- Mark XP, and the GM makes a move.
Jason Lutes Excellent! Thanks.
Subtext is also the author’s thematic intention, which can be revealed or pointed to obliquely via elements in the plot. This is easy in a heavily-GMd game, but not so easy in a GM-less or GM-lite game. In PbtA terms I’m not sure if it should be a Principle or an MC Move to elicit subtextual thinking after the fact, but here’s an example:
– Ask “What is the ‘movie director’ secretly telling us with this shot, scene or character? Is it a metaphor or allegory for something else?”
I think maybe the first question should be if it can exist in an RPG. I believe it can – but to what extent I am not sure. But the idea has been bugging me for a while now so I would like to hear what people think.
Doesn’t Swords Without Master do this with Overtone and Phases? That game seems to be all about the subtext to me. There should be some pretty rich, untapped design space in hacking *World and Swords Without Master together.
SWM does use the constantly shifting overtone to influence descriptions, but I don’t know that that is subtext since all descriptions must be in the prevailing tone.
After playing the Dead of Winter board game yesterday I came up with the following to try and embed subtext in my Cowboy game:
Under GM Principles:
☺Make sure things are often not what they seem to be.
☺Portray believable NPC’s.
☺Give NPC’s hidden or ulterior motives.
Under GM Moves
☺Show an NPC’s true colors.
☺Reveal the truth about something.
I know this is implied in AW and DW but I want to make it explicit so that the GM would consciously apply subtext to the game.
Any ideas? I hope to GM a game tonight applying these principles.
(In Dead of Winter all the players have hidden agendas which makes the game thick with subtext. Does Pete not contribute food because he is hoarding it for himself? Is he going to go berserk and kill off everybody else? Or does he really not have food to contribute?)
http://www.plaidhatgames.com/games/dead-of-winter
Another game worth looking at is Battlestar Galactica, the board game, or any other traitor driven game.
AW itself has exactly an agenda against subtext. NPCs should have clear direct agendas; you should be able to figure them out.
Echoing Tim Franzke
Or at the very least, if a character has something going on underneath the surface, it should be broadcast that there is something there
MC’s should make moves but misdirect…
Subtext is only subtext if you know it is there. Otherwise it is… nothing. Subtext is what forces you and enables you to figure things out. The opposite of subtext is telling you directly, on the nose, leaving nothing to figure out. So that fact that you have to figure things out and should be able to figure things out necessetates subtext.
So Tim, you are right that you should be able to figure them out. That implies subtext. You are wrong that the characters should have clear agendas. If everything is clear there is nothing to figure out. It is on the nose…
Subtext broadcasts that there is something under the surface that needs figuring out. And subtext allows you to figure things out, for yourself.
I hope that makes sense…
Nope
Since I am on a cowboy binge at the moment…
The movie Shane is a story about conflict between a ruthless cattle rancher and a farming family. But is it really? From the first act there are signals broadcast that there is something going on under the surface that needs figuring out. It keeps your mind busy the whole time. In the very last scene you finally figure it out: The real story is about a man and another man’s wife. The real conflict is only alluded to and never stated directly. But the fact that it is there is abundantly and clearly broadcasted. And you have to figure it out yourself.
This is why Shane is such an enduring story.
I am trying to emulate this in RPG’s. I tried tonight while GMing DW but in retrospect I failed because I did not broadcast it enough that there was something, and did not leave it to the PCs to figure out – when the time came I told them on the nose that the NPC was a traitor.
I believe I learnt something in tonight’s session. My hope is that once I nail it, to codify it in such a way that it can relaibly be duplicated by others.
We’ll see…
The problem with subtext, as it related to AW at least, is that subtext feeds into plot more often than not… And you shouldn’t plot. I mean, I dunno, I’m sure someone better than me could brilliantly build subtext on the fly off the cuff and make it mean something in the long run. But to play AW, with no plot, and build in what you’re calling “subtext” sounds like bull. Sure, your movie has subtext — it also had a team of writers and months of development and I don’t know how many scripts.
What you need to be doing, rather than writing agendas like “give people hidden motives” (which is a big duh for any character that wants something done). or whatever, is write instructions that create the illusion you had it planned all along. Subtext is only subtext if it pays off in the end, and if your sign in session 1 pays off in session 10, chances are you preplanned that story.
Alfred Rudzki that sounds like reincorporation to me.
Good use of subtext involves reincorporation.
Alfred Rudzki I hear what you are saying and will think about it. But my gut feeling is that motivations, while they drive plot is not the same as plot. Thanks for the comment, it is well thought out.
This is why, in a *W game, any subtext should be created by the players. There may not be any. But you can always ask them.
A Hocus in my AW campaign had a really weird relationship with his followers; some were favoritized and some were abused. I wondered why. I asked him about it one day and he actually had an answer. He said his character viewed the cultists as surrogate siblings, because his character’s brothers and sisters had been taken by the plague, and that some of them represented siblings he had personal problems with. I found that fascinating, so I asked him where he got that idea. He said “From my real family and my relations with my real brothers.” Bleed AND subtext! Wow!
As If But the MC is also a player.
Here is what I have been thinking after reading some of the answers here:
Under GM principles /moves:
☺Everytihing is not always as it seems.
☺NPC’s have hidden agendas and ulterior motives
☺Don’t tell them straight – give them clues and make them figure it out
While I do not agree with everything that has been said here, it most certainly stimulates the old gray matter. Thanks to everyone who posted!
Wynand Louw We will have to agree to disagree on whether the MC is a player. In your OP you made a distinction between “GM Moves” and “Player Moves” (you did not say “MC” and therefore I took the question to be not *W-specific). The word was “GM” not “MC”. That changes things.
On my view, in trad games most clearly, the GM is not a player, but rather a set of functions derived from and required by the system itself. In more “modern” games, this question is sometimes debatable.
Back to the point: I like your principle, but it doesn’t speak directly to the question of subtext. Maybe that’s all we need, because like I said, sometimes there just isn’t any subtext. But my suggestions above were an attempt to get more directly to some content that would generate something we would all recognize as “subtext”. YMMV of course!