Hail shields!
Just listened to Hank’s latest podcast on Qualia and Narrative, full of goodies (specially liked the “razor” concept).
But I am not so clear on how to actually utilise this concept of qualia and narrative in game design.
When Hank talks about “a bit of this and a bit of that” is it as simple as creating continuity in encounters for the players to go through, with a sprinkle of “qualia” descriptive moments?
What’s your take? Would love examples!
Ack!!!
First I don’t think Qualia is the word for what he was describing per say. qualia is my subjective experience, all of it, of something, and that is truly individualistic
This is a hard topic and set of examples to write. in part because Hanks use of Qualia was shorthand for intended shared emotional experience, more so than qualia.
For Qualia, in this topic we are really talking about shared emotional head-space. Even more to the point, intended shared emotional head-space. That everyone is feeling the same sense of something, for example dread, or sense of betrayal.
I don’t know that I have ever tried to approach it. and the only times I realized I experienced it, was after talking to fellow players or movie watchers after the fact and we compared experience.
Now getting people excited or enthusiastic is a form of intended shared emotional head-space. Concerts, powerful church sermons, political rallies, riots are the best examples of orchestrated group shared emotional experience.
Camp fire ghost stories are another good example and one that fits our needs better.
To get there, we typically need to set the mood. minimize distractions, get everyone feeling the same vibes.
You and your friends are in a new city, while exploring it starts to rain, and you are surrounded be large two story buildings with few windows. They look like warehouses. seeking cover from the rain, you huddle next to a wall.
Then the rain really starts comming down, and you see a large entrance. At first glance it looks abandoned, and you walk in, looking around, its dim but your eyes adjust. there is detritus throughout the large expansive floor. you get the slight odor of mold, and perhaps a bit of rot. You creep in not looking at things in more detail.
You hear drops from a few leaks, notice a feathers in a small pile. You get to the pile, a collection of what must have been a pigeons body, mostly gone except for minor parts of the wings and back.
Now with your eyes fully adjusted, you notice a large dark smear on the far wall and a small bundle of what appears to be blue canvas near it…
That narrative, with the right music, no distractions, low lighting, the right voice and cadence can be a great beginning to an intended shared emotional experience.
However, someones brother laughing in the other room with the TV on loud can take some people or everyone right out of that shared emotional experience.
So can someone at the table burping or farting.
Hankarin is trying to get us to up our game and start considering this level of investment and risk to attempt get our group there.
I think this is a lofty goal and not one to approach lightly, our group has to be mature (not in age, but in not taking from the moment to make everyone laugh, or try to lighten the mood.) all phones need to be off, all neighbors with loud car stereos need to be away…
To some degree, this is easier, and cheaper to do with VTT, we all have headphones, we are all focused on screens, we all value everyone’s time. But when it is accomplished in person…it’s great! Magical even…and then we roll for initiative and it all goes to hell for me.
Actually, that is a cop-out. playing in @Shadymutha 's BLACKLIGHT game I think got us there. And all the players in that session seemed blown away by the experience.
I just don’t know that unless a group was being paid to do it, that they could devote the emotional investment every session. Life and other distractions happen. Or I need to find better groups, that don’t talk about or think about their life during their sessions. But it is something to strive for.
It’s not an easy topic to lay out, I think. I’ll try to give my understanding of it because, in doing so, I hope too get better at it.
The narrative is the story that is being told and it is sequential (for the most part). The quality is what that story or, more importantly, elements of that story mean to the players. The emotional weight.
It’s easiest to build that weight on a grand scale, but I find it weighs heaviest if it’s done at the personal level (but is much harder). Grand scale is too impersonal, in my opinion, for true emotional involvement. There needs to be true significance on a personal level. Because with that, the personal is then reflected in the macro.
As a DM, you do your part to create situations (narrative) which is easy enough. The next step as DM, where Hank is talking about, is to make those situations truly mean something or evoke emotions (qualia) in the players.
To do this, you as the DM need to know why the situation you’re presenting is necessary. If it’s not necessary to the narrative, get rid of it. Then, you need to make the situation personal by pulling players in. Set the tone of the situation and let them sit in it and linger. If there’s dripping water and the smell of sulfur then keep mentioning it and appeal to the 6 senses.
Doing this humanizes everything, rather than players simply using characters as pawns on a chess board it allows the players to actually start perceive the situation as their characters do.
YEP. Narrative is ‘easy’ and shared, qualia is in each person’s head, and very hard to induce or evoke.
A little of each makes a great session, just like action and rest, humor and gravity.