Where Is The Author?

When you run a TTRPG, one of the key things you need to be conscious of is where the role of the author resides. You may think you don’t need to address this, but you do. If you don’t explicitly make decisions about it then the choice is being made through implied and unconscious decisions.

This may be fine, say in a group that’s built up an implied social contract, but it can also result in friction at the table. It certainly results in many debates and conflicts in TTRPG spaces on the internet, which tend to appear like they have many heads like the mythical Hydra, but in truth are often about where the author is.

A Disclaimer

This post is more speculative than others in the series. I continue to find value in the way of looking at things outlined in this post. It’s very much a point on a journey, not a final position. It’s not a dogma I’m trying to push or a religion I’m trying to recruit for. I learn from writing these things and just hope other people get something out of it by sharing.

So read it on that basis, enjoy.

The Spectre of GNS

Let’s also clarify something before people get further in. There are elements of my thinking that obviously have some influences from GNS Theory and on that basis the thoughts that fed into it.

GNS theory is an informal field of study developed by Ron Edwards which attempts to create a unified theory of how role-playing games work. Focused on player behavior, in GNS theory participants in role-playing games organize their interactions around three categories of engagement: gamism, narrativism and simulation.

Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory

That’s not to say I’m presenting a unified theory of anything. I’ve got way too much imposter syndrome to be deluded about that.

It’s just an influence along with a range of others across years of playing, experiencing different games and discourse with many and varied individuals. I also consider playing and running role-playing games as a practice to understand and improve in terms of outcomes, so I’m pre-disposed to understand ‘why’.

If you hadn’t heard of GNS before reading this post you could have ignored this section. If you had, acknowledgement is now given so the best practice is covered. If you want to tune out due to being burned on this subject way back when you can relax, it’s not designed to be triggering by bringing up old dogma – it’s just not acknowledging it would have been bad form.

What Is The Scope of Measure?

When we ask where is the author what is the landscape or the scope of the geography we are looking for them in. We are looking for the author in a gaming group in the actual play of a specific game.

I’m going to try and use the word table or at the table, etc, to describe the intersection of the above three things, but I’m human, so I may drift into things like the game or the campaign. In all cases just mean the gaming group in the actual play of a specific game.

So to decide where the author is under this scope of measure we need to establish a few things: –

1. The approach each player may have at the table
2. The desired outcome of the table itself
3. Where the author can exist

We’ll now look at each of these in turn.

The Player Approach

Not everyone approaches their play at the table the same. It’s probably even true that people don’t even have a consistent approach as it may change over time or in the context of the group they are in or the nature of the game they are playing. It’s important to recognise that a lot of these abstracted constructs are a way of thinking, understanding, analysing or discussing – none of them is a set agenda to die on a hill as a constant, ‘binary’ truth.

The ways the people at the table may approach the game are shown in the diagram below: –

They approach the game as an Author. This tends to mean they are approaching the game as a writer whose goal is to write a good story through whatever mechanisms are present either explicitly through rules or potentially more implied through the social contract of the group. It also tends to mean they are more likely to use the meta-game as a tool to enable this authoring and don’t necessarily see their play as being confined to the characters head or preceptions. This is fine as it’s a myth that all meta-gaming is bad.

The character is to be written.

They approach the game as an Actor. This tends to mean they’re more interested in acting out the role of their character in the context of the events unfolding. Less a writer and more an actor responding to the exciting and dynamic circumstances. This can also mean they are less likely to branch out of what their character knows or can observe in making their decisions. In some cases, someone approaching the game as an actor can be perturbed when people step out of their character’s head and observations or are asked to author stuff as they feel they are then just making things up rather than being presented with situations to act within.

The character is to be performed.

They approach the game as an Audience member. This means they are approaching the game as someone watching it. This sounds strange but this does happen, especially when you consider none of these things are mutually exclusive of each other. This tends to manifest as someone who just wants to experience the game and its events and doesn’t have as a priority the need to actively author some of those events or even act a part, though they will describe actions and maybe act to a minimal serviceable degree, they’re actually looking for an experience similar to soaking up a TV show or film. If you’ve got a player who seems to not be too active but consistently says he adores playing, you’ve probably got someone into an audience approach.

The character is a vehicle to interact with events.

And yes, it’s worth noting these items are originated from the GNS concepts of ‘stances’ but I’ve written them as I define them.

The Desired Outcome

Before we can discuss where the author might reside without discussing the approach at the table. It is this lens that appears the most in gaming discussions on social media. People talk less about where the author is, but they do very much talk about their approach and it is where a lot of the discussion occurs – even if does often not have a common language of discourse.

The desired outcomes at the table are shown in the diagram below: –

The approach at the table can be Narrative. This means a good narrative and story are a purposeful outcome. It’s not something that happens as an incidental afterthought. The goal is to create a good story by decisions in play in each and every moment. As you can imagine, it’s this approach that demands we find a replacement for the author the most. This approach is literally trying to duplicate the outcomes of a written medium without the ‘singular’ author involved in these processes. So if the gaming group is of this school of thought they truly do have to identify where they like the author to be found or it may descend into confusion and mixed outcomes.

The approach at the table can be Immersion. This means a rich setting and a goal of verisimilitude are a purposeful outcome. This can be seen as so important that how the setting changes and how the various powers (be they economic, political, criminal or individual) move in the world to generate that sense of verisimilitude is the what counts as ‘the story’. The story sort of exists ‘outside’ of the concept of player character protagonists. Decisions to maintain the illusion of things be being true or real are given a priority. Note I’ve not mentioned the world realism, because verisimilitude, the appearance of true or real, means different things at different times. It means something different in Star Trek than it does in a gritty crime setting.

The approach at the table can be Challenge. This means providing a good, challenging game is a purposeful outcome. This often manifests in a shift to challenging the players as whichever way you look at it the challenge always rests at the feet of the players. Even if it’s said it is a game of overcoming challenges to the characters the players designed those characters. There is a sense of the players overcoming the challenges through ingenuity and their characters surviving and achieving a win condition with a reward. In the most extreme examples of this approach the author may not need to exist at all in the experience as any story is purely incidental, constructed after the fact from random and capricious events – it’s not ‘authored’ at all during play.

Like with all these power of three dynamics they’re not ‘binary’. As an example, even someone who is heavily narrative can like some underpinning immersion and a bit of challenge, but it’s very much ‘in support of’ rather than the priority.

It’s recognised these are originated from the GNS concepts of Gamist, Narrativist and Simulationist but written as I define them.

Where Is The Author?

Now we’ve established how players may be approaching the game and what the desired outcome at the table might be we can discuss where the author can reside. We’ve reached this last because where the author resides is another conscious choice the group makes and that is definitely made by all the elements discuss interacting in a complex fashion.

When it comes to a TTRP the author can be found in three places. The three places are depicted below: –

The author can be found with the GM. This means the person running the game, the GM, is the source of where the author can be found. You can easily see how this can easily be the case. It’s often said the GM chooses or writes the scenario, creates the campaign setting and plays all the NPCs. The variables do stack up to making the GM the logical source of the author, some games explicitly state this, others open themselves up to it by not explicitly having any rules to suggest anything else. In many ways Critical Role finds a lot of its authorship with the GM. Not all of it, but a lot of it.

The author can be found with the Players. The players are everyone but the GM. At some tables, the Players are as much a source of the author as the GM, possible more so from certain perspectives. At other tables, the Players actively don’t want authoring responsibility and it very much breaks why they are sat there playing the game. As the author responsibility of the Players rises the need to for mechanisms to decide who gets to decide also rises whether through vague social contracts or actual rules.

The author can be found within the Rules. This may be very strange to some as a lot of role-playing games are very agnostic regarding this and don’t include any rules that place a stake in the ground about where the author is. The author can be found in rules by virtue of games that have rules to decide and orchestrate how authorial power can be assigned rather than leaving it up to social dynamics.

I don’t think it’s realistic to look at a particular table and go they are 60:20:10. The goal isn’t to lock things down in numbers but to help aid conversation to get to an approach at the table you want with the outcomes you want.

Because your approach at the table can be something that’s worth challenging?

Give Me Some Examples!

That’s a lot of words without any practical examples. We can approach some examples from a number of directions but I’ve tried to give a: –

1. System example
2. A personal example
3. A TTRPG movement example

I’m sure it’s not perfect, but since these ideas are largely ones that are to be explored through discussion it’s a good enough set.

The Dungeons and Dragons Experience

Let’s look at the Dungeons and Dragons experience. Why? Simply because it’s the biggest role-playing game out there and there is definitely the D&D community and then the rest. It’s sort of its own thing.

That’s right, in the core rules D&D provides almost zero rules that provide a presence of the author in the actual system. There are no tools for the players to moderate results based on what is important, no rules to allow a player to work with fictional elements at the level of the rules and no real methods to enact authoring at the system level. I’m not going t o say in the myriad of D&D supplements there isn’t, but in the main rules, these things are a vacuum.

So it’s an interesting case as it means where the author is to be found is entirely a social construct at the table.

In ruth, D&D support a very challenge-based outcome in its rules, the desired outcomes of narrative or immersion aren’t supported at a system level at all. At a stretch it can be said that the increased survivability of characters (which is fine with me) is a tangential support mechanism for narrative, but it’s certainly not active or explicit. Similarly, how Hit Points works can, due to being an abstraction, be used as a way of executing the fiction in the game but this isn’t their true purpose it’s more a resource management and pacing tool in the face of challenge.

What D&D does do is its design goals are enacted in a way that aren’t too hardcoded, prescriptive or explicit to stop people from seeing what they want to see. This is the source of all discussion as people approach it from narrative, immersion and challenge perspectives and it’s ‘let them fight’. It does mean room exists for individual social contracts to be overlaid on top of it.

Look at Critical Role, just because it acts as the closest thing we have to a common, mass media example, they play a very GM driven campaign but one that is heavily influenced by player choice. They also do a very good actor approach as they are voice actors. The fabric of that game and where the author is between the participants comes entirely from the social contract of those participating due to learning what they like over many years. I’d also say it’s heavily influenced by their GM’s approach to D&D.

Analysing Myself

If I was to look at myself through this lens I can clearly state I take an author stance, with an interest in playing scenes out like an actor to some degree to see where it goes. I very much expect the approach to be narrative to support that heavy author stance. I like the author to be split across all at the table and the system to provide mechanisms to support a good story being an outcome.

I see the experience as one of writing in the moment supported by playing out scenes, as calling it acting would be a stretch.

But like every human being, there are some wrinkles to this. These primarily come down to how the overall experience can cause me to alter the above approach and the nature of the systems input into where the author resides.

This means there are subtle things that mean some systems work for me and some do not. I love Fate and Cortex Prime. This is because they provide tools to run a game on a fiction first basis, using fictional and narrative elements as tools to help facilitate a good story being an outcome. They don’t structure what that story should be.

I tend to dislike or be very suspect of systems that provide a lot of story as outcome support but tend to provide a structure that means the rules feel like they define what that story should be. An example of this can be Powered by the Apocalypse games, which in some iterations defined too many components of the story as you play out the structure and pursue the upgrades on the Playbooks.

I find enacting an author approach demands a certain level of context for me. It doesn’t for some, they just go for it and see any ‘vacuums’ as an opportunity to fill it. I tend to need a minimal level of context and connection to the material in order to feel like I have some rough foundations to author in a way that is supporting and adding to the tone and intent of the material.

If I don’t get that I will shift more towards audience stance.

I don’t turn into a wide-eyed mute but the more observant of the group may notice my authoring goes down to be replaced by a soaking up of the story as it occurs. I sort of move along the spectrum between an audience and author approach depending on context.

Old School Renaissence (or Revival)

The Old School Renaissence movement is a risky one to bring up because it’s a bit like The Life Brian sketch about the various political and resistance movements in Judea. It seems to have factions and different holy texts. It’s interesting for our discussion because of some of the principles at least some versions of it have adopted.

In some approaches to OSR any story is purely an accidental, artificial construct that may seem like a story after the fact. It’s so much not an intended outcome at the table that it can be argued the author cannot be found anywhere by intention. The GM isn’t doing it. The players aren’t. The systems actively avoid bringing such tools to the table. Indeed, it can be said, from a certain point of view, OSR is a reaction to that direction.

The games are about players resolving problems and challenges, the concept of the character as a fictional protagonist with a story to tell actively does not exist or is de-prioritised. You’re not supposed to find solutions via your character, the players is finding them in addressing the challenges of the game whatever they maybe.

While this is the closest thing to a style of play opposed to mine, it is a very interesting example of how, when the question of where is the author comes up, it’s possible he may not exist or be pretty anaemic.

And, Finally…

Well, there we have it. An attempt to provide some thoughts on the factors leading into where the author may be in your role-playing games and where they might practically be found. Do you need to think about this much? Not necessarily, the vast majority of gaming groups who play together long-term just find a rhythm and they will have made a decision as to what degree an author exists and where they can be found but it need not be conscious. Social contracts just form.

At the same time, this is a site about thoughtful fandom, so we tend to be thoughtful! It’s also useful sometimes to make an active choice about what outcomes you want at the table and how you’ll go about ensuring you get those outcomes. In other cases just having some sense of a common language is also handy.

Enjoy.