Reply to Glandis, regarding Gamism

[Ron Edwards]

Callan and Gordon, I was pretty sure you two were agreeing, and the degree to which you've connected to my post confirms it as far as I'm concerned.

Eero, everything you wrote conforms to my experience, but I stress that nothing you wrote concerns an isolated or recent phenomenon. Moreno has it right:

That kind of play can be described by almost every D&D player after years of playing (can be. Many will refuse to admit it if you ask. Then after some years I meet them again and they say to me "you were right, but I didn't want to admit it"). It's the grinding down caused by all these game sessions, every time searching for "fun" that you can find less and less.

Absolutely right. Historically, this is role-playing. I am wearily, wearily familiar with it. It's precisely what I was referencing when I wrote that blasphemous conclusion to "GNS and other matters of role-playing," when I said that most role-players didn't enjoy themselves very much. It's why I decided role-playing was broken in December of 1983 and that I didn't need to waste my time with it. (I gave it "one more try" with Champions in July of 1985 ...) It's what we encountered in that Rolemaster game that I frequently mention, and that game is notable because even the GM realized that something was terribly wrong here, and we all sought a better alternative in my parallel Champions game.

Therefore both to you and to Troy,* I stress again: quit tarring 4E with this brush. This kind of play is observed throughout the hobby, all the time, especially with D&D of all kinds, and I submit in 3/3.5E as much as any if not more. I submit as well that 4E has immense potential for successful play of a certain kind, clearly invisible to many including its developers.

I think this kind of shitty play ... wait, let's use jargon, it's the most grinding, lame Zilchplay held together strictly through a Social Contract that does not include "let's play this game," but rather, "let's be D&D people." Creative Agenda is so far removed from this picture that it's even actively discouraged. Pile on helpings of Geek Social Fallacies, unfamiliarity with any source literature worth the name, and above all, the notion that since it's D&D, it is the most real expression of this activity.

We ought to spend more time talking about that ur-ideal.

Best, Ron

* I see no evidence that 4E is stacked in the players' favor. I see marshmallow fight prep and egregious fudging.

[Ron Edwards]

Couple more individual responses ...

Ed, totally.

Gordon, I'm not following you here:

Ron - if "the lackluster, incompetent, confused, and ineffective performance of most of the participants" was socially acknowledged and condemned, could that salvage things? What about if the Duke presented consequences - rewarding those who actually fought, scolding and/or ignoring others? Would one or the other - or both - do a better job of creating a Step On Up environment? Or perhaps such things are still woefully insufficient? (And that was a quick cool-off, but I think you're right that your hot, steaming touchpoint helps - though I *sure* don't want to be literally touching it. I think you made clear why it's hot and steaming ...)

There seem to be a couple of interpretations to interpret, but I'll stick with your question - my answer is no, a thousand times no. Social Contract and Creative Agenda concerns are never successfully addressed at the Techniques level within the Exploration (fiction). I've seen this ten thousand times, and my God, it's disastrous every time. I'd figured you'd seen this too so I'm sort of surprised you posed it.

I'm completely with you about false Gamism and its parallel to the Impossible Thing. I wrote about it a little in the Gamism essay. It seems reasonable to say that any CA necessarily has its own Impossible Thing developed from a subculture of historical dysfunction, and now that Simulationism is finally beaten into understandable shape (and no longer unfairly associated with Zilchplay), we could probably find that too without much effort - in another thread.

You wrote:

... certain GMs resist it - not realizing that admitting it AND making sure there are other places/ways where player screw-ups have consequences would make life easier on them, too.

"Certain" meaning almost all of them, myself included until the mid-1990s.

Best, Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Damn it, missed another point - Troy, you asked whether group building for the Duke and the city might have helped. The answer is no, not as such. Again, that's trying to fix grander problems with smaller-scale techniques. The techniques, however innovative or non-standard, aren't going to do shit unless (i) the Social Contract indeed includes "let's play this game together," and (ii) Creative Agenda is firing among us. That latter, as you know, is best described in terms of Color and Reward. Techniques only work within that context.

Although you and I discovered Techniques as a road to success, that's because you and I were seeking (i) and (ii) in the first place. If people aren't doing that, possibly because they simply have no idea that those things exist, then no Technique in this world will "wake them up" to get there. As Mike explained long ago, and as you know being the main student of the Standard Rants, you can't sneak up on mode.

[Miskatonic]

Ron,

I'm really pretty stoked at how you're intuitively picking up what's good about 4E, and where the obvious opportunities to make the play more awesome are being missed. The rules, as written, have a pretty laser-like focus on Step On Up play. Fudging rolls and such is completely unnecessary and would seem to undermine the fun.

(I guess it should be no surprise to me you're recognizing all the same things I did, seeing as you're the guy who called out the features of Step On Up play in the first place.)

It might be worth noting one of the two total party kills I've GMed was in 4E D&D. If the real people sitting at the table freely communicate amongst themselves to coordinate tactical combinations, the PCs are indeed pretty much unstoppable. But if people fall into lazy "pay attention only on my turn" play -- which has essentially been encouraged by every other incarnation of this game -- they will individually be torn apart. There is something kind of beautiful about how this is designed.

[glandis]

Ron - Well, it was a multi-part question. Looking back at it, what I was expecting was that social acknowledgement/condemnation=a start (if participants deliver/take it appropriately), and then MAYBE that can show up in the fiction as well. But I guess I posted before the thought had fully developed. Because addressing within the fiction in the absence of shared understandings/expectations IS almost-inevitably disastrous - even implying it as a potential stand-alone solution was a mistake.

I'll also say that I'd find the number of players in your latest session an additional obstacle of its own. I know people who have no problems with it, so I wouldn't call it a crucial issue, but I think it is worth calling special attention to.

Callan - I certainly see potential agreement, but I'm not sure it's full. It may not be worth struggling over the details, but I wanted to say I wouldn't be surprised if you still see issues.

[Callan S.]

I don't see any acknowledgement that if asked, Shawn, with genuine feeling, would say 'Yeah, you could have lost!'. Despite all the emperic evidence.

The idea of there being agreement reminds me of a Seinfield episode where someone agrees someone is a vegetarian - and so offers them just a really thin slice of ham in their salad. Really thin!

Shawn got to the point where he could say, despite the emperic evidence, 'Yeah, you could have lost!' because he navigates by feeling alone. And feeling can get turned all around and start going backward, but still call it forward (check out mythbuster episodes on navigating/swimming while blindfolded for a physical analogy). Call day, night. Call losing a win. And it's the uncomfortable realisation that that capacity is in all of us - we can feel exactly the same way as Shawn. His is a genuine human feeling. Were all too intelligent/wise here to have held onto the 'Oh, but that's just him! Not me!' denial card.

Just like the horizon can appear flat when we live on a round world, if something is big enough AND we are close enough, so can our view be a distorted phallacy of the actual situation. The usual track for D&D is really, really big - either level 1 to 20 or 1 to 30. That's big - big enough to see something round as something that is flat.

As an experiment, I would recommend playing a game of D&D where it is establisht/all know that top level is level 2 and you will not level up any further upon having gotten there! Play from level 1. I imagine once you get to level 2, you will continue play for awhile (possibly gaining slightly better gear, for example) but after a few hours play, you will get a particular feeling of being done with the activity. I hypothesize it will cease to be a 'forever' game (religion?) and will have a palpable feeling of an ending/a finish line having already been met.

Saying I basically agree is like saying I agree that from my view the horizon is flat - I do agree with that. But it is not the whole of my argument (despite appearing to be the whole of the issue). Indeed how easily the rest of my argument is severed away is part of my (severed away) argument.

Anyway, I've proposed two relatively easy pratical tests so far - ask Shawn if the group could lose & run a 'Level 2 is the top level' D&D campaign. I'll see some agreement from those who try them out.

[Ron Edwards]

I don't plan on asking Shawn anything derived from this thread. Playing with me at the table is probably trauma enough ...

Callan, I am a little turned around when it comes to your position or goals or what responses you're interested in. Your proposed questions are good food for thought, and as far as I can tell, I agree with every point you just made and with its implications. Do you think it's a good time to call the thread done?

[Callan S.]

The thread, but the experiments/questions remain open items. Maybe spawning threads in future.

Heck, now I'm curious about running a level 1 to 2 game. Though not exactly what I've described, the D&D encounters programs (that I've played in about 7 of now, at a guess) go from level 1 to 3 - as campaigns they have endings, and are roughly supposed to have you end at about level 3. So if anyone is in one like Ron or can get into one, that's one way of running a kinda similar experiment fairly easily. Though the current encounter season is around 13 sessions in length as opposed to previous campaigns taking about 8 sessions, so this one will take longer. Good luck all, in your experimentation!

[glandis]

I'm still very mystified by a number of points in what Callan's been saying that seem to directly contradict that Eero, for e.g., is really playing Step On Up, but - maybe future threads are better places to sort that out.