Infinite spikes piercing nested membranous beach balls!

[Ron Edwards]

That sounds like a Captain Haddock curse, doesn't it?

Here's a recent exchange of emails between Moreno and me, which I suppose he can cite as an example of how obtuse I can be, and I can cite as an example of what I have to put up with. It really gets crazy fast, but eventually we dispel the vapors and the last two or three wrap up well. I'll clear the wiki of all confusing phrasing about "type" and stuff like that, for instance.

In some ways it's exactly the sort of exchange that ultimately led me to close the GNS Discussion forum at the Forge, so I hope no one sees it as an example to follow. It does, however, expose a couple of points which would be very helpful to pursue, preferably not here but definitely in either Your Stuff or My Stuff depending on who published the game you're talking about.

MORENO
Hi Ron! If you have a long and detailed answer probably it's better if you write about it in the forum, I am writing in private because it seems that I am the only one bothered by this...

At first we had the "GNS modes": every rpg session was different with different priorities, but these priorities were divided in 3 groups.

Then come along the Big Model, and there is a strange effect:  in some post there is talk of "three different CA", in other of "three different CAs modes". In some thread they are 3, in other they are infinite, one for every instance of play, divided in 3 groups.

I write to you about this a couple of years ago, we talk about it at INC, and you say that they are 3, only 3, and any citation of "modes" is a leftover from pre-BM GNS.

Some weeks ago Vincent post in his forum that they are infinite.

Now, in the Wiki you write: "Three types"....

And my head hurts...

The problem is of definition: what EXACTLY we are calling Creative Agenda? Because every game has different priorities, there is something different in every one, and there are three groups of priorities: but we call CA the groups or what is inside the groups?

The diagram doesn't help. If the CA is a spike, then they are infinite (infinite way to stick the components of exploration, techniques, ephemera, etc in various ways). The definition talks only of priorities, so it seems they are infinite. But when we say that Story Now is a CA, we say that they are only three...

Now, I am an atheist. I don't believe in things that are one and three at the same time, how can I believe in something that is three and infinite at the same time?

RON
Well, there can be only one arrow into the beachballs, so I guess the best way to look at it is that there are three ways to color that arrow.

One thing that puzzles me is that you keep saying "session" in your email. I only referred to sessions in that I wanted people to consider substantial periods of time when thinking about CA, not whether you rolled d10 or played rock-paper-scissors. Later I switched to reward cycles, which typically means one or more sessions, but none of this means CA occurs in *units* of sessions.

Another thing that puzzles me is the infinity. There aren't an infinity of CAs. Where are you getting that idea?

One CA for a functional role-playing group; the alternatives are either Clash or Zilchplay. The CA can appear in only one color. Three colors are known.

Does that help?

MORENO

One thing that puzzles me is that you keep saying "session" in your email.

My mistake. I know about reward cycles, I don't know why I wrote "session". Probably I wanted to say "table"

Another thing that puzzles me is the infinity. There aren't an infinity of CAs. Where are you getting that idea?

"Infinity" in the sense that the possible combinations of priorities are so many to be pratically uncountable.

To be sure you get what I an saying: if the skever is what block the BM levels in a functional way, when you play The Mountain Witch with a group (assuming a common CA) you play with a different CA than if you played Polaris (different setting, system, etc, so different positions blocked by the skever) , and you play with a different CA
than if you play the same game (the mountain witch) in another group (different social contract, system effectively used counting unstated rules, etc.). Even if you play the same game with the same group, you could change
priorities (different characters, color, setting, etc)

In this model, the "pieces" are fixed in a coherent way, but the possible combinations are uncountable

The "3 single CA model" instead is not well depicted by the skever, it would be more a switch (or, like you said, a different color)

One CA for a functional role-playing group; the alternatives are either Clash or Zilchplay. The CA can appear in only one color. Three colors are known.

Does that help?

Maybe: so, "a lot" of possible CAs, of only three "color" (type)

It's still not clear what differentiate that "a lot":

The possible cause of confusion is that "One CA for a functional role-playing group":  I think you are talking about one CA for a functional role-playing group for a single "instance of play", but the group can change CA if they start to play again from the beginning, right?  Even if they don't change nothing (setting, system, color, etc) apart the characters?

(did you change the way you see CA in the last two years or I misunderstood what you said to me at the time? I remember that you were really adamant in stating that the CA were only 3, period. I explicitly asked you  about a game with the same group, system, etc but with a different premise and you stated - as far as I remember - that the CA was the same)

RON
Your Polaris vs. Mountain Witch example is crazy. They're both Narrativist. They differ in their Techniques profile - but you knew that already.

All Vincent and I are saying is that a person or group might LIKE the Techniques profile for one of those games better than the other, and therefore have more fun playing it. It really is intended to be a descriptive point, not especially intellectually challenging. Did you see Vincent's post that he agrees with me that the word "agenda" should not even apply, except to the three?

It's important to understand as well that we are talking about functional games played well. There's nothing mysterious about disliking a Techniques package that doesn't work. And similarly, as we're talking about here,
there's nothing mysterious about liking one game's Techniques better than another's even though both sets work.

We can talk about arrows and colors after this concept receives some clarity.

MORENO

Your Polaris vs. Mountain Witch example is crazy. They're both Narrativist. They differ in their Techniques profile but you knew that already.

Now I am confused again. Not by the "both narrativist" bit - I know that - but from the way you are talking now as "Narrativist" was a single creative agenda and not a single creative agenda type, as in the wiki.

If "narrativist" is a CA type, then there must be at least two different CA of that "type".. Both narrativist, but different. Or it would not be a "type" but a single one CA.

So, let's start again, but this time in tiny steps:

1) Story Now is a "CA" or is a "CA type"?
2) If Story Now is a "CA type", can you write an example of two different CAs inside that one type, and talk about what differentiate them?

All Vincent and I are saying is that a person or group might LIKE the Techniques profile for one of those games better than the other, and therefore have more fun playing it. It really is intended to be a descriptive point, not especially intellectually challenging. Did you see Vincent's post that he agrees with me that the word "agenda" should not even apply, except to the three?

It's important to understand as well that we are talking about functional games played well. There's nothing mysterious about disliking a Techniques package that doesn't work. And similarly, as we're talking about here,
>there's nothing mysterious about liking one game's Techniques better than Another's even though both sets work.

I am following that thread with interest because I have seen a lot of problems tied to system preferences , and "Technical Agenda" was not a term I was much satisfied, but it's not tied to this one, I am not talking about Technical Agenda

RON
I'll preface this by saying that you are making no sense to me at all. Your #1 reads like some kind of schizophrenic break that Jesse Burneko used to produce all the time, when I swear he invented new ways to think solely so he could become confused, because simply understanding a simple concept would be too easy.

Creative Agenda is a collective term for ANY characteristic set of major priorities during play. Since we have discovered three distinct kinds of Creative Agenda, you can say that there are three kinds - which to me is
the same if you say there are three Agendas.

It's just like color (the real thing, not the jargon term). Your wagon is painted with a color. Conceptually, the wagon is colored, with no need to specify which color in order to justify or further understand that statement.

Now, if you wanted, you could name the color in the case of a particular wagon. Let's say there are three colors available: red, yellow, and blue. And in this case, unlike real colors, they do not mix, so you have to have one and only one of them in order for your wagon to be colored.

It would absolutely unnecessary to say "red is not a color, it's a type of color." That's what it seems like you are saying, as I'm reading your email.

That's how the term Creative Agenda works. If we are talking about whether it's there at all, then we contrast it with "failed or absent agenda," just like we say "the wagon is painted a color." But if we are talking about how a given group is playing, then we contrast the various possible versions of it to one another, just like we say "the wagon's color is red." No one has any problem using the word "color" as both category and type within that category. Why make it a problem here?

MORENO
Let's say that we are going to play Primetime Adventures.  I suggest a gritty crime drama ("Everybody Dies at the End!"). You suggest a My Little Pony funny cartoon spin-off ("My little Cats"). At the end we agree to play both, first a season of "EDatE" and after that a season of "MLCats". Let's presume that the group engage both premises with passion and a coherent Story Now agenda.

Now, I see a lot of different "maior creative priorities" in the two TV shows. In the two show I would made different characters, different choices, really the only three things that remain the same are (1) players, (2) system, and (3) both are painted red in your example.

Question 1: in you wagon example, there two tv shows are two different red wagons (but the color is the same), two perfectly identical red wagons, or there is only one red wagon?

Question 2: "Creative Agenda" is the paint or it's the wagon?

Question 3: "Story now" is the name of the red paint, or it's the name of the painted wagon(s)?

(the three questions are deceptibly similar but they point at different doubts)

Question 4: your answer would remain the same if we had chosen a different system to play one of the two premises? (leaving only the people at the table and the red paint the same)

RON

Now, I see a lot of different "maior creative priorities" in the two TV shows. In the two show I would made different characters, different choices, really the only three things that remain the same are (1) players, (2) system, and (3) both are painted red in your example.

Sure. I have always said that sharing Creative Agendas does not make two different games exactly alike or equally satisfying to the same person.

Question 1: in you wagon example, there two tv shows are two different red wagons (but the color is the same), two perfectly identical red wagons, or there is only one red wagon?

The first: two red wagons, but they are different wagons. (Um, the analogy is breaking down a little - we have to assume here that the color of the wagon is incredibly important and affects everything about the way we assess the way the wagon works.)

Question 2: "Creative Agenda" is the paint or it's the wagon?

I was talking about color only as an analogy for how the term is used. You may be taking the analogy much further. If the paint is fundamental to how the wagon works (which it is not for real wagons), then Creative Agenda is the paint.

Question 3: "Story now" is the name of the red paint, or it's the name of the painted wagon(s)?

Sticking solely with my original analogy, and not getting sidetracked by the fact that real paint doesn't make real wagons go, it would be the red paint. Unless that leads you to some kind of absurd conclusion, in which case the analogy is being extended too far.

Note that the paint never exists all by itself, it has to be on a wagon to exist. So I think your use of the wagons in this example is approaching absurdity already.

Question 4: your answer would remain the same if we had chosen a different system to play one of the two premises? (leaving only the people at the table and the red paint the same)

Only if the system supported using that paint. Again, the wagon/paint isn't working here. I suggest that you are getting too wrapped up with it. I only wanted to show you that Creative Agenda can be used as both a
category term and a type term, just as in color.

"The color can be red, yellow, or blue."

"This one is the color red."

And that's all. I think your wagons are running away with you.

MORENO
I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel (I hope it's not a train). I will try to rephrase all this using my own words to check with you if am understanding what you meant.

Every time we play a rpg, we have a specific social contract, a specific imaginated content (exploration), a specific system, and a lot of ephemera tied to this game. These combinations are potentially infinite, because every time we play (a complete cycle of play) it's different. This is what is (potentially) infinte.

A lot of these combinatons present contradicting procedures,  social tug-of-war about the imaginated content, or are in general incoherent or even disfuntional

When play is characterized by a creative agenda (all the different level are placed in a coherent way) , you can draw a "spike" in the big model diagram to show that that play is coherent (this is one of the problem I have with the diagram: you could draw a spike for any kind of play, we simply choose to not be interested in drawing the
spike when the game is incoherent. Probably a incoherent spike is wobbly, curved or damaged in some way, but it must exist to be able to play at all)

Of all the possible spikes, we have observed three "kind": to use another analogy than color, to show that they are really different spike, we could talk about bone spikes, wood spikes and metal spikes (animal, vegetal, mineral)

THAT material (bone, wood, metal) is what we call "creative agenda"

It's right, or I missed something important?

Anyway, at this point, if that picture is right, I think we have some problems with the current nomenclature and diagrams.

First: if that is the picture, Creative Agenda is not described by the current definition (both the  current one and the glossary one) that talks about  aesthetic priorities  in general (so, by that definition, the two games of PTA I desctibed should have two different agenda, having different aesthetic priorities for the two series)

Second,  there are not "three types of Creative Agenda", there are three CA, period. Saying "type" presume that there are a lot more than 3, divided into three "types" There are instead "three types of coherent play", and each type is a Creative Agenda.

Then: the spike is not the creative agenda.

It's this what tripped me and tripped a lot of people (I can't count the ones that looking at the diagram thinks that creative agenda are potentially infinite). The spike is coherent play (and it could even be incoherent play, if we did choose to depict these broken spikes, too). The creative agenda are the "types of coherent play", you can use color to show it in the diagram, or a way to draw the spike, or even draw it like the hammer that put the spike into the diagram, but it's not the spike. The possible spikes are potentially infinite.

RON
You're kidding.

Please tell everyone to stop talking about infinite spikes. I thought the implication that Italians were wrangling about what I meant by the word "Now" was bad enough. But infinite spikes!? What next, moebius penises?

I'll try to assess your latest phrasing after I bleach my brain enough to remove the Lovecraftian image of nested membranous beach balls festooned with infinite spikes.

RON
Your general summary of the model is adequate.

Anyway, at this point, if that picture is right, I think we have some problems with the current nomenclature and diagrams.

First: if that is the picture, Creative Agenda is not described by the current definition (both the  current one and the glossary one) that talks about  aesthetic priorities  in general (so, by that definition, the two games of PTA I desctibed should have two different agenda, having different aesthetic priorities for the two series)

That all depends on what you mean by aesthetic priorities. I think you're missing just how powerful "priority" is - here, I am using it in special reference to Reward, especially social, reinforced, shared Reward. When you apply that concept to the created fiction, you get a resulting concept which is very easy to identify and understand. Or so I think. By "aesthetic," I'm referring merely to the fact that we're talking about the created material. The fact that the created material can include anything imaginable that fiction can include, is irrelevant - it's all the same, because what I care about is the priority.

Second,  there are not "three types of Creative Agenda", there are three CA, period. Saying "type" presume that there are a lot more than 3, divided into three "types" There are instead "three types of coherent play", and each type is a Creative Agenda.

This is all babble to me. The "types" conundrum strikes me as pure mental masturbation. There are three recognizable, irreducible, and incompatible manifestations of Creative Agenda. Creative Agenda does not exist unless it is manifesting as one of these. However, no matter which one is manifested, it is operating *as* Creative Agenda in the model.

That operation is specifically this: to permit input *toward* getting the reward, which goes from social deeper into the model to arrive at techniques and their use; and also so permit output *from* using those techniques to travel back out to the social level so we can all appreciate and enjoy what one another (we) just did. This process is cyclical to the extent that when it is fully reliable, it is experienced more like a vibration than a distinct effort-in, results-out alternation.

I only think of it as a spike so that this inward and outward process may be conceived in terms of constant priorities, of which, pick one: addressing Premise, winning/losing Challenge, and validating Constructive Denial.

All other aspects of spike-dom should be ignored. Just because I say "hyena" because I want to connote powerful jaws does not mean every other feature of hyenas has to be dragged into the conversation and a corresponding feature sought.

MORENO
Only "adequate"? For my efforts? You are a stingy teacher. Just for that, I should send you all my theories about infinite groups of infinite spikes into infinite nested beachballs (with moebius penises, obviously...)

I can do even worse: I can explain where the confusion came from.  My advice is to keep the brain-bleach near, available on short notice.

The principal problem, I think, it's that you draw diagrams like a... I don't know, a biologist maybe, but surely not like an engineer, and I read them from a mathematic - engineering point of view.

From my point of view, the circles in the Big Model diagram depicted a set, as in Set Theory.  And so the diagram contained, in these circles, all the possible techiniques, all the possible ephemera, in sum, all possible roleplaying experiences possible (from this derived all the "infinites" that filled my last e-mails). The diagramd depicted, as you said, "All Role-playing", but in the sense of really ALL.  In this vision of the diagram, every role-playing experience is
a subset of the diagram, and the spike of "coherent play" was a  sort of "function" (not really, not in the matematical sense, but similar enough) that depicted a specific complete gaming cycle with a specific creative agenda.

This meant that if you want to depict another game, there is a different spike. Three game? Three spikes.  All the infinite possibile games? Infinite spikes (yes, infinite spikes. Spikes in a infinite number.. On nested beachballs)

After your last e-mail I finally realized that these circles are not sets. And that to understand that diagram I have to stop thinking about them in a mathematical/engineering way.

My understanding now is that with these circles and that diagram, you only wanted to depict two facts, and two facts only, without all the implications of them being sets or cointaining anything:  you wanted to show (1) that they are "inside" (subset, particular cases) each other and (2) that creative agenda tie all together and start from
social, goes until... ? (in a email you said ephemera, in some forum post lately it seems that the arrow turn back at techniques level) and then go back to the social level as (social) rewards.

So, there are no set,  the diagram don't "contain" all the techniques, it doesn't contain any (not even the one used in a specific game), it's only a way to say "this is iside this" and "this is tied to this". And the CA "arrow" can be anywhere in the diagram as long as it still pierce all the levels, it doesn't represent a subset of anything, it only means "this goes this way from here to here and back again"..

And that diagram depict "all role-playing" in the sense that it shows things that happen in any game experience with a creative agenda. [this leave still a question:  if the diagram represent all role-playing, I thought that incoherent games were simply not touched by the spike, or with a broken/wobbly spike. But if it's not the case, and the diagram only show these two things, the diagram only show coherent play, and incoherent play should be drawn without any arrow]

Did I got it right this time?
 
RON
Yes!

Make anyone else who's confused about this stop talking ...

edited to fix a typo in the thread title - RE

[rgrassi]

God bless you both.
And, Ron, if there were these kind of "problems" for the key concepts, just imagine for the "minor" terms. :)
Rob

[Moreno R.]

I am posting this here because it's not actual play, it's actual... misunderstandings.

This one, shown in the e-mail exchange, it's the last in series of similar misunderstandings that I see all the time, in me and others.  Caused by the same problem: the diagram is deceptively simple. TOO simple, as drawn. Simple as usually are the diagrams abut sets or any complex theory.

When I "got" creative agenda the first thing I thought was "but... but is only this? But it's incredibly simple!"
And then I passed the next six years in Italian forums trying to say that it's so simple to really a lot of people, who usually begin by saying that creative agenda doesn't exist, that it's impossible. And then when they get it, they always says "but it's obvious" ("yes, so why did you make me write all that to make you understand it???")

Now it come out that even the diagram is simpler that it seems, not only the concept.

So, my diagnosis of the problem is this: the diagram is drawn like a mathematical diagram. It makes people think about difficult mathematical theories. It's very simpleness is deceptive.

To avoid this problem, the diagram should say "it's simple like something even a child could understand". So it should be drawn as in children's teaching books.

I am thinking about one of these diagrams that show the inside of the planet Earth, with all the levels (the crust, the mantle, the inner core, etc). They are colored, and the picture usually is drawn in prospective, with the layers peeled away in a quarter of the sphere or even less.
Each layer should show some funny pictures of people at the table (social contract), characters fighting a dragon (exploration), maybe some cloud and dice and cards for techniques, etc.
And no Creative Agenda arrow. (that should be in a separate diagram)
(Almost) Nobody could look at a diagram like that and think that it could represent anything difficult to understand, or complex.

Then, the same diagram, but in black and white and without the pictures (only the lines of the spheres in prospective), with a curved thread (like a copper wire) that from the social level goes inside until the inner levels, then turn back, return to the social level, then turn back again, goes in the inner spheres, then turn back again on the social level, like a short solenoid (only 2-3 spires), like a stitch that sew the levels together.

Not all the diagrams, only one page, two diagrams, drawn like this. To link to people and say to them "look, the usual diagram is very schematic, look how really is" and having them look at two diagrams that (almost) nobody could ever thinks as something difficult, drawn as in a children's book.

I don't know about you, Ron, but I think this would save me a lot of times in explanations...

(If I could draw even a scrawl worth a damn, I would already have done it...)

[rgrassi]

I'm not sure if the "earth" representation is good.
I've understood that the relation of the elements (aside from 2 or 3) is not "includes / included by", but it's only a generic "refers to / is referred to" or "relates / is related to".
If you represent the elements like the earth the "includes" relation is exalted and all the rest in not taken into consideration.
An entity-relationship model or a mind map view could be better.
Rob

[Ron Edwards]

Rob, I'm going to ask you to focus on actual-play based posting for a while.

Thanks, Ron

[davide.losito]

I think the currently proposed diagram is perfectly fine.
the problem is people who try to interpret the whole model just by looking at the diagram, compensating with common sense on terminology they haven't read yet.

My experience is exactly this: I grasped the meaning of Creative Agenda after I actively looked at the diagram and after I read the explanations about the Reward Cycle.

They idea of making it an active hyper-textual structure is also a good way to take advantage of the internet technology to explain these concepts.
Maybe Ron you should think about developing a further level of hyerplinks in order to give an easier access to nested concepts and their possible siblings.

[Jesse Burneko]

Ron,

You say the nicest things about me!  But seriously, Moreno nails it when he talks about Engineering/Mathematics mindset.  The schizophrenic thinking comes from mentally enumerating sets of possible interpretations across multiple conceptual axis.

Anyway, I do want to add that I've become very interested in talking about how technique preferences/clusters RELATE to Creative Agenda.  Sort of like how we can talk about Red Wine vs. White Wine or we can get more sophisticated about it and start talking about whether it's fruity or chocolaty or smokey and all that stuff they teach you when you want to become Sommelier.

That's what I was kind of trying to get at in my Leverage/Ravenloft thread.  I was giving an example of when theme becomes a critical component of the reward cycle for a particular instance of right to dream play. 

I feel like there exists a more sophisticated way of talking about Technique/CA blends then JUST instances of AP or Design analysis.  But maybe not.

Jesse

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jesse,

I think your Leverage thread is a perfect example and partner for this thread, but I'm trying to compose a reply for it that isn't merely saying "Yeah!"

Techniques clusters are always best understood in terms of Reward, I think - whether mechanics-heavy or not, whether direct or indirect. You're definitely on the right track about that. I'm also going to be talking about it a little bit harshly in the Color thread, where it seems to me people sort of slid the Color away and drained the reward mechanics of Reward; Moreno identified that already in one of his posts.

Have you tried profiling a game in Big Model terms like I did, or started to do, with My Life with Master in the wiki, listing the actual techniques? Because I bet if you do, perhaps for two games which get unthinkingly grouped as "Forge games," you'll find they diverge significantly in key ways. Try it with Polaris vs. Primetime Adventures, or Dogs in the Vineyard vs. Dust Devils ... or singly, we could get quite a lot of mileage out of a thread which simply lays out the techniques and talks about what was genuinely most fun about playing one game. Your Sorcerer with Hans and Joel would be a good candidate. And now that I think of it, from what I gather from the available write-ups, it would be very useful to contrast it with one of the games of My Life with Master I played and posted about a few years ago.

Best, Ron