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QuoteI'm interested in this:

QuoteQuote:

The GM would say that he writes the story and the players would say that they play their characters however they wish. Neither side may realize all the unconscious limitations they put on their actions so as to fit together.

I'm amazed by the idea that this would be considered 'unconscious.'

In my play this is, in fact, pretty conscious in the sense that I expect to be constrained by situation and expect that any legitimate action will be accepted even if it makes for 'a worse story' (but, you know, if I felt that doing something would ruin the GM's fun, I'd consider not doing it for obvious and conscious reasons).

In the games I've written up, I think that in an RPG context it is very fair and perhaps even correct to say that the GM is the author and the players are the protagonists.

I say this is *correct* because of the conscious working-together within different roles that produces the play. It's the Impossible Thing in action.

Okay, every time I write this I end sounding bitter about my past RP experience.

Let's try this:  We have a spectrum.  On one end is "The GM authors the story, establishing setting, events, reactions, thoughts, and feelings.  The players follow the script."  On the other is "The players have their characters do whatever the heck they want and the GM just tries to keep up."  I would tend to label both extremes dysfunctional, but that's just me.  I'd guess that 99.9% of actual play happens somewhere in the middle, with the majority of mainstream play being on the "GM in charge" half.

Ooooh, neat analogy.  Ever do that trick where you stand in a doorway and push the back of your wrists against the doorframe for a couple minutes, then step away and your arms just float up without you telling them to?  That's my energy under "The GM is in charge" paradigm.  Even if the constraint was removed, I kept doing the same thing.  Now, if the doorway kept changing size, I would have to think about how to move my arms rather than just thinking "PUSH", so I would be conscious of constraint and freedom and my own movement.


For many years, I didn't have any meaningful decisions to make, so I stopped thinking about them, and finally forgot that they were there.

Your play sounds much more center-of-spectrum, which I would characterize as more thoughtful and conscious, for lack of a better term.

Make sense?  Reaction?

Hi Jaik,

Quote
Make sense?  Reaction?

Makes a lot of sense--and it's a fine answer. I think I understand what you mean by your analogy and that's cool.

As a reaction, I'd like to speculate a little bit on your hypothetical 99%-1% split (which I think is validly posed). To do that I'm going to use an intentionally hyperbolic hypothetical example--and hope I make sense as well.

It's my belief that when a well-meaning player and a well-meaning GM, neither of whom are committed to powerstruggle, engage in contentious direction-of-play-control (in an open-ended traditional RPG wherein there is not a pre-existing mechanical solution for such disputes) that the solution pretty much has to be conscious cooperation.

Imagine you are running a hardboiled niorish private detective game and a player, when faced with a conflict declares that "his character will grow wings and fly to the top of a building" as the solution. He's totally serious. If you say 'no' he'll claim you are stopping him from doing things 'his way.'

(I don't think anyone ever really does this)

I'd expect you to say 'no' and, if the fact that in Private Detective fiction people don't grow wings, didn't dissuade him, I would predict that he stops participating in the game (or that it otherwise falls apart).

Now, in that situation, the GM can be said to be "running his story" since whoever came up with the conflict, the player is being denied what he feels is a rightful solution to it.

From the player's POV, the GM is over there in the 99%-GM-run dysfunctional setting.

To see how this example could be a whole hell of a lot more 'reasonable' (IMO), let's say that although this is a hardboiled game, the play is taking place in a 'dream sequence' and the GM has presented a problem that if solved will provide an interesting clue. The GM feels that the character is 'breaking genre' and the player says 'well, yeah--but it's a dream.'

In this case, if both parties respect each other and cooperate, however it works out, assuming that no one *has* to have their way but is willing to cooperate with the other party, the solution will be conscious.

For example, the GM says "Okay, it is a dream--can you give me some more detail as to how the wings symbolically relate to your character and your character's view of the solution--then I think I could buy that."

The reason I'm using this example is because I've always wondered how it was ever considered functional play when the GM acted to dictate his 99% of the story and a player--in the spirit of cooperation and respect--acted outside the GM's guideline and the GM 'reigned him in.'

Where I saw this, it always devolved instantly into dysfunction. Players who were met with disrespect or no cooperation usually, IME, know it, and this mode of play doesn't work.

(If you tell me about a great game where you let the GM make all the decisions, cool--but I bet that (a) you agreed to that standard and (b) the GM was making decisions that kept you entertained and (c) the GM respected you. With (a) and (b) there is only the illusion that the player is disempowered. Without (c) you have a player who says he was walked on by someone who didn't respect him but still enjoyed play).

When you tell me about the game that's 99% player driven, I ask if it looks like my Private Detective example because if it doesn't (if the players are still constrained by the imaginary reality of the game-world) then the GM is, IME, far from a 1% participant.

-Marco

Hi Aaron,

How about "The GM AND the players have input"?   The extremes you are talking about involve at least one person having no input whatsoever, and that doesn't work at all.  

"Being in charge of" works only if we break it down to various subtasks and give authority to the various folks in the group.  For example, authority over the creation/introduction of conflict and control over NPCs actions and reactions, while authority over PC actions is completely different, there is no conflict.  But if two different groups are both expected to have authority over the same thing(PC decisions) and there is no means of negotiation, problems occur.

TITBB falls down because it states that the players AND the GM both have authority over the same things, at the same time.

The constraints that we're dealing with is that if everyone has input(though probably not over the same things or same degree), it is that we(as a group), through our choices in play, form the constraints for ourselves as individuals.  This is just a fact of playing in a group.

That is to say, if all the players have authority over the actions of their characters, I have to be ok with it if Bill decides his character, Qaazar the elf wants to jump off a cliff.  Bill also has to be ok if I decide to invoke the game's mechanics to try to have Matarus the ranger grab Qaazar before he falls.  And if we have these rights or authority, the GM also has to be ok with our decisions and the outcome thereof.  This is no different than the rules of Monopoly that says Player A can buy property X if he or she lands on it AND can pay for it, and everyone playing has to accept that as part of the way the game works.

The thing is- constraints are what give gameplay direction, whether we're talking about the constraints advised in the game manual from system to setting ideas, to the actual constraints created by the group as a whole during play itself.  Some folks are very good at creating direction, some folks are good at supporting the directions that others have created.

Again, the issue is that TITTB doesn't work without serious doublethink happening.  The usual two actualities are:

"The GM is in control of the story(except what the players input on and the actual outcome, um, which I guess means he's not really in control at all, but just giving input) and the players can do what they want(as long as they accept the input of each other and the GM)."

OR

"The GM is in control of the story(except the color created by the players, over which they have input) and the players can do what they want(as long as its what the GM wants, otherwise they have to figure out a way to get the GM to want what they want, or just give up, which I guess means they can't really do what they want)".

Even these two methods of play are functional, though TITBB is not.

Chris

I should probably clarify my 99.9% claim.  I'm saying that .1% of games take place at either extreme total.  I mean the EXTREME, as in the DM dictating EVERY action, with the players providing dice-rolling (but not interpretation) and dialogue (but only saying what the DM tells them to say).  I mentioned script and I meant it.  The other end would be complete chaos, with every player narrating whatever they felt like, independant and simultaneous with one another.  Multiple stream-of-consciousness RP with the GM as a harried...person (words fail me)...desperately trying to keep up.

I can't see a bit of fun in either of those, thus .1% is probably way too much, but more 9's starts to look silly.

My guess that the majority of mainstream play is on the "GM controls" half is derived from standard GM lore and standard advice you'll find in the ubiquitous "How to run the game" section of the rulebook.

Now, to your points.

QuoteThe reason I'm using this example is because I've always wondered how it was ever considered functional play when the GM acted to dictate his 99% of the story and a player--in the spirit of cooperation and respect--acted outside the GM's guideline and the GM 'reigned him in.'

Where I saw this, it always devolved instantly into dysfunction. Players who were met with disrespect or no cooperation usually, IME, know it, and this mode of play doesn't work.

I certainly agree that this 'reigning in' style doesn't work and is dysfunctional...at first.  However, if you think that that's what roleplaying is like, what it's SUPPOSED TO BE, then you start to conform (if you're me anyway.  I've always been wishy-washy and a little too easy-going).  You stop trying to step out of the GM's guidelines.  Now, I don't think we've reached the far far extreme end of the spectrum yet in a "standard" D&D game, where the DM runs a module and it's understood that the player's will portray a roughly heroic group attempting to defeat the evil uncovered in said module.  There is still some room for player innovation and decision-making, but it's well away from the middle of the spectrum.  And though I think a lot of people play this way, I think they're less than thrilled with it.

QuoteIf you tell me about a great game where you let the GM make all the decisions, cool--but I bet that (a) you agreed to that standard and (b) the GM was making decisions that kept you entertained and (c) the GM respected you. With (a) and (b) there is only the illusion that the player is disempowered. Without (c) you have a player who says he was walked on by someone who didn't respect him but still enjoyed play

In our recent groups, yeah, we did unofficially agree to this style, more through default, tradition, and a lack of awareness than any actual decision.  It's just the way things are (we thought).

QuoteWhen you tell me about the game that's 99% player driven, I ask if it looks like my Private Detective example because if it doesn't (if the players are still constrained by the imaginary reality of the game-world) then the GM is, IME, far from a 1% participant.

Oh no, your example of negotiation between player and GM is certainly not 99% player-driven (and might actualy be on the GM-controlled side, if only because he holds the ultimate veto power).

QuoteIn this case, if both parties respect each other and cooperate, however it works out, assuming that no one *has* to have their way but is willing to cooperate with the other party, the solution will be conscious.

Let's say that every player (and GM) has a certain comfort zone on the spectrum, each of a different location and width.  When a (eventually compatible) group gathers, at first there will be stumbling blocks, as situations arise outside of someone's comfort zone.  The game should eventually come to settle within everyone's overlapping area.  I think that the longer play continues, the less thought will be required to keep play within the safe zone.

I think your Noir Detective dream sequence is an excellent example of early negotiations, with play further down the road skipping the middle, conflict, step and going from "I grow wings" to "I can see that, go with that." directly.

Do you think that one side of the spectrum lends itself to ingraining its style of playing more quickly than another, or more solidly?

Quote from: BankueiHi Aaron,

How about "The GM AND the players have input"?   The extremes you are talking about involve at least one person having no input whatsoever, and that doesn't work at all.  

I never said that either extreme would work.  I think they both sound like a perfectly horrible way to spend an afternoon.  The trick, I think is to find just the right spot inbetween where all involved can feel comfortable.

Quote from: Bankuei

TITBB falls down because it states that the players AND the GM both have authority over the same things, at the same time.

I didn't say that it DOES work, I said that it can APPEAR to work.  Given enough time and enough stability within the group, I think that people settle into a balance.  Given the prevalence of TITBB, each "side" may come to believe that their group has indeed accomplished TITBB, but in fact, they simply limit themselves and their actions so as to peacefully cooexist.  If someone is simply incapable of this, you get horrible, horrible blow-ups as we've sometimes seen in Actual Play.

Hi Aaron,

I wasn't accusing you of saying those things, I was agreeing and putting forth some details about the hows and whys of the dysfunctional extremes along with the hows and hows and whys of the functional ground.  I apologize if I came off attacking you in any way.  I was hoping to post detail for anyone reading who might want to make that shift from unconsciously playing in(mostly likely) a functional manner while claiming TITBB, and seeing what's really going on.

The aspect of group input providing limitations and direction I think is most pertinent to your experiences.

Chris

Hey Aaron,

I wasn't clear about what I meant (although it wasn't a big deal): if someone claims their game is 99.9% player-driven I would expect it to look like my Private Detective Game--but where the player does grow the wings in real life in contravention of genre--that is, the player is not constrained by anything the GM says or does nor by the game world nor the character's (initially) imagined constraints.

As I said, I don't think many games look like that--but when people talk about player-driven games or protagonization I find that I usually have a very big question about what the role of pre-established situation or hidden information plays in the constraints on their actions.

I don't, for example, consider it inherently disempowering to a player for a GM to say "that didn't work" due to hidden information the GM had decided on ahead of time (and I mean this in the sense of the GM having, say a map the players don't and the player declaring "I go north and find the King!" when the king is listed in being to the south).

Quote from: Jaik
Do you think that one side of the spectrum lends itself to ingraining its style of playing more quickly than another, or more solidly?

It's my observation that what you think about that depends on how you feel about gaming in general. In high school we had a lot of problems--but my players didn't just sit there and go along*--they stayed around, kept on arguing, and killed the game.

When we had dysfunctional episodes it usually resulted in the death of the campaign. Because we were all friends, we didn't kick each other out. We hadda deal with each other.

Under those conditions, I think the GM-Player negoitation middle of the road is pretty much all that does work. If people are willing to put up with an experience they don't like and keep coming back and not complain (much--or just complain elsewhere) then, I don't know--I think the strongest personality leads and if that's a GM then it's towards that side and if it's a player then it's towards the other.

-Marco
* (nor did I, when I played--but since I also GM'ed I was less rabid as a player than some of the people who only played)

Quoteif someone claims their game is 99.9% player-driven I would expect it to look like my Private Detective Game--but where the player does grow the wings in real life in contravention of genre--that is, the player is not constrained by anything the GM says or does nor by the game world nor the character's (initially) imagined constraints.

I don't know why you would conclude that Marco.  How do you make the leap from "play my character" to "spontaneously invent Super Powers"?

The Impossible Thing pits Players ability to control their character against the GMs ability to control the story.  No where has "player's play their character" been suggested to mean "players can say absolutely anything they want without being questioned"  That's a false dichotomy you're putting up there.

The permissibility or unpermissibility of a player's narration violating setting or genre convention is an issue 100% completely unrelated to the Impossible Thing.  The two have nothing to do with each other.

Is this perhaps the difference between "player driven" and "player controlled"?

This is one of those threads that appeared and exploded in all directions overnight, so I'm trying to put together a somewhat cohesive response from fragments; I hope I'm not misunderstanding something.

Quote from: Marco(If you tell me about a great game where you let the GM make all the decisions, cool--but I bet that (a) you agreed to that standard and (b) the GM was making decisions that kept you entertained and (c) the GM respected you. With (a) and (b) there is only the illusion that the player is disempowered. Without (c) you have a player who says he was walked on by someone who didn't respect him but still enjoyed play).

Well, let me take those point by point:

• (a) you agreed to that standard[/list:u]
  No, I didn't. I wasn't asked, and the standard wasn't explained to me. I was manipulated the entire time I played that game. It lasted for over a year, several sessions a month, probably eight to ten hour sessions. The referee used every trick in the book--what I liked, my perception of what my character would do, my approach to game situations, the psychology of the other players in the game--to steer us where he wanted us to be. We always thought we were in control, until someone overheard him talking about what was going to happen in a substory one of the players had started.
  
  It happened that eventually he had maneuvered me into undertaking a quest I knew 1) was probably suicide and 2) my character could not imagine declining because he was honor-bound to go. I managed to get my character a trump card--a single-use device that could save us all from an overwhelming enemy. We began the quest. As soon as we were just far enough into it that returning was out of the question, an overwhelming enemy attacked. As soon as I played that trump card, that enemy retreated. I suddenly realized that the entire reason for that encounter was to strip me of my trump card, so that the referee could make me afraid.
  
  I never played in that game again.
  
  
  • (b) the GM was making decisions that kept you entertained[/list:u]
    Oh, this is definitely so. We were all terribly entertained. The problem, though, was that we were being entertained by the impression that we were making tremendously clever and successful tactical decisions when in fact we were merely adding color to his story. He would throw things at us which ought to have decimated us (e.g., a party of ten first level characters challenged by a Skeletal Warrior), and we would scramble for some incredibly clever tactic to save our necks, and it would work--and we would congratulate ourselves, not realizing that had we decided to throw cooked spaghetti at the enemy, it would suddenly have been discovered that they had a weakness for al dente pasta. We were entertained by the impression that we were being clever. We were only being manipulated into feeling that way.
    
    
    • (c) the GM respected you.[/list:u]
      I don't know. I think he enjoyed manipulating people, and used games to figure out how they thought so he could manipulate them in real life. But perhaps I do him a disservice. He never has trouble finding people who will play in his games, and usually ends up the center of a circle of friends one way or another. I don't think "respect" is the right word for his attitude toward people, though.
      

      Quote from: Marco alsoWhen you tell me about the game that's 99% player driven, I ask if it looks like my Private Detective example because if it doesn't (if the players are still constrained by the imaginary reality of the game-world) then the GM is, IME, far from a 1% participant.

      I think you've made an assertion here that does not hold: that the referee alone is responsible for constraints placed on the players by the imaginary reality of the game world. If we've sat down to play a film noir detective piece and one of the players announces that he's going to grow wings and fly to the top of the building, it's entirely likely that the other character players will say, "You can't do that, quit joking around." The fact that games like Legends of Alyria can be played entirely without a referee (despite a highly complex setting) tells us that the constraints of setting may impact the players without any input from the referee whatsoever.
      
      Chris: technically, players have credibility--that is, the statements they make are accepted or rejected as modifications to the shared imagined space based on whether or not they have the credibility to make such a statement. Authority rests in the tools that support play--rules, dice, charts, descriptions, character sheets, and other objects that can be cited by players in support of a statement. It's a nuance, but I think it's significant.
      
      That wasn't so bad. I hope it helps.
      
      --M. J. Young

Quote from: Valamir

Quoteif someone claims their game is 99.9% player-driven I would expect it to look like my Private Detective Game--but where the player does grow the wings in real life in contravention of genre--that is, the player is not constrained by anything the GM says or does nor by the game world nor the character's (initially) imagined constraints.

I don't know why you would conclude that Marco.  How do you make the leap from "play my character" to "spontaneously invent Super Powers"?

The Impossible Thing pits Players ability to control their character against the GMs ability to control the story.  No where has "player's play their character" been suggested to mean "players can say absolutely anything they want without being questioned"  That's a false dichotomy you're putting up there.

I think your phrasing is great for looking at why I did that.

Thesis: I submit that in the traditional open-model the GM does most of the work on Situation* which includes running the world. If the player can "control their character" in any way they want, but are still constrained by situation, which the GM, IMO, is responsible for controling in anything resembling open-ended traditional roleplaying, then saying that the player has as much or the same kind of input over the game as the GM is IMO, wrong.

(That is, the "players are the main-characters" reading of the second half of the TITBB can't, under a traditional game, mean the same thing as "the GM is the author of the story" since traditional players, for example, don't run NPC's, do prep-work, invoke laws of physics, etc. At a theoritically high level one can say that all the text is talking about is direction of play but the rest of the game-book proves clearly that isn't so: there's no section on statting out your GM. The two roles clearly have significantly different responsibilities under any contextual reading of the text.)

Therefore: If I tell you that you can play your character however you want and early on I have my NPC's ambush you and (using all the rules and from a reasonable series of events) knock you out and stick you on a freighter bound for Bangcock, are you going to tell me that your ability to "play your character" has given you control over the direction of the game?

No--I would think not.

But clearly, I can allow you to do whatever situation, setting, and character allows, right? I mean, you can decide to pitch yourself overboard. You can try to take over the boat. In the fight you could choose to run or fight dirty or whatever--but unless you are controling situation you can't say something like: "The lead bad-guy is about to taser me in the back when suddenly he realizes I'm his long lost brother! Make your silly situation go away, GM, and give me one where I win."**

There's a point somewhere where even most player-driven gamers would agree the player is over-the-line (my example), but since we don't know where that is, we're going to have to constantly negoitiate it.

It's endemic to the Player-GM model. The exaggerated scenario points out that if the players don't act as the GM then there is still going to be these problems. And it has nothing to do with expectations--the players don't expect to be doing prep-work like the GM. They don't expect to be running NPC's. They don't expect to have all the hidden knowledge of situation or be able to evaporate complications whenever they want.

This is why TITBB can, will, and does happen in Sorcerer, a game that doesn't contain the text and is run by someone aware of the problem.

-Marco
* And there are some specifcs about what I mean by this--but the GM determining what sort of malfeasance is behind the player's Kicker counts, for example.

An important part of the GM controling Situation means the running of important NPC's--especially agenda-driven NPC's where they exist. As John pointed out in another thread, a GM running a strict dungeon or (especially) a linear module doesn't count for this and, I think, is fundamentally different wrt TITBB.

** In some traditional games you can do this mechanicaly (usually with some limits)--and there could be a stat or power in a traditional game that lets you "win without fighting." If the power-division is so prevelant that you can, with regularity, simply wave away any form or conflict or situation then I'm calling the game non-traditional.

Just because a player in Hero could, say, call for a Luck roll in which three dice of luck could escape the ambush doesn't invalidate what I'm trying to say here--I consider that very similar to beating them up because you have two shotguns and a katana.

The question is how much of the world the GM runs and how mutable situations are in general from a player (meta-game) perspective. If the player input because of mechanics is very high then I don't consider the game traditional. I'm certain there are gray areas I'm not thinking of and I'm sure we can split hairs over this though.

Quote from: M. J. YoungThis is one of those threads that appeared and exploded in all directions overnight, so I'm trying to put together a somewhat cohesive response from fragments; I hope I'm not misunderstanding something.

Hi, MJ,
I'm aware of your game. Con-Artistry is outside the scope of that statement. I meant to be refering to people who tell me "I had a great game where the GM nullified my input and we all ran his plot but, man, it rocked." I've heard that. I'm sorry I wasn't clearer.

Your example is telling: the nature of the game changed for you entirely when the cards were on the table. I'd quit too.

Quote

Quote from: Marco alsoWhen you tell me about the game that's 99% player driven, I ask if it looks like my Private Detective example because if it doesn't (if the players are still constrained by the imaginary reality of the game-world) then the GM is, IME, far from a 1% participant.

I think you've made an assertion here that does not hold: that the referee alone is responsible for constraints placed on the players by the imaginary reality of the game world. If we've sat down to play a film noir detective piece and one of the players announces that he's going to grow wings and fly to the top of the building, it's entirely likely that the other character players will say, "You can't do that, quit joking around." The fact that games like Legends of Alyria can be played entirely without a referee (despite a highly complex setting) tells us that the constraints of setting may impact the players without any input from the referee whatsoever.

Well, what if it's a one-player, one-GM group? I mean, the GM could phone a friend ("Tell Joe here what hard-boiled means!") but ultimately if the player doesn't agree then the game will be in trouble (or the player will sit quietly and stew about what a jerk the GM is or something but assuming that people stick to their guns play will stop).

I agree that a setting or situation can sort of be said to 'self impose' limits on players--but on The Forge there's a rousing chorus that'll tell me that anything in the game must happen because of people!

I don't know Legends--but if it can be played without a GM then it's immune to the problem, just like Universalis is.

-Marco

Quote from: MarcoThesis: I submit that in the traditional open-model the GM does most of the work on Situation* which includes running the world. If the player can "control their character" in any way they want, but are still constrained by situation, which the GM, IMO, is responsible for controling in anything resembling open-ended traditional roleplaying, then saying that the player has as much or the same kind of input over the game as the GM is IMO, wrong.

Well, this depends on the definition of "open-ended traditional roleplaying".  I haven't seen a concrete definition of it, so I have to guess a bit.  From earlier discussion, you seem to agree this doesn't include, for example, D&D module play.  It also doesn't seem include most of the rgfa Simulationist play which I'm used to (cf. Plotless but Background-based Games and Open Play for the Soul).  So what exactly is it?  

I would tend to say that "traditional roleplaying" means that the players control their PCs, while the GM controls the rest of the background and world.  Given this setup, it seems to me that the control of direction is straightforward.  The more that the PCs are pawns of their environment, the more dominant the GM is likely to be.  Conversely, if the PCs are powerful, well-informed, and free relative to their environment, then the players are more likely to be dominant.  

As Aaron said in his first post, it seems that there is a smooth spectrum between these.  At one extreme, you could have a near-LARP-like scenario -- i.e. there are no NPCs, and thus most of the action is interaction between the players/PCs.  The GM is mostly watching.  At the other extreme would be, say, scenarios where the PCs are brainwashed agents who get their mission orders from some NPC authority, and the players are just trying to fulfill their orders as best they can.  

What I don't get is what part of this spectrum is covered by your category of "traditional open-ended roleplaying".  

Quote from: MarcoTherefore: If I tell you that you can play your character however you want and early on I have my NPC's ambush you and (using all the rules and from a reasonable series of events) knock you out and stick you on a freighter bound for Bangcock, are you going to tell me that your ability to "play your character" has given you control over the direction of the game?

Well, first of all, yes.  I do have considerable power over the direction of the *story*.  Depending on how you define "game", maybe that is in the GM's hands (i.e. the GM can "beat" the PCs, no contest).  But the story does not consist of what the location is, or even whether the good guys wins.  By playing my character, I can make this situation range from Monty-Python-esque comedy (trading quips against the GM's straight men) to dramatic psychological revelation (a lot of dialogue or monologue about how this feels).  

This isn't hypothetical on my part.  I've been in a number of games which involved considerable surprise and/or hair-pulling on the part of the GM, as he watched the story turn into a complete reversal or parody of what he intended despite fairly blatant railroading.  It's something of a bad reputation of mine, actually (ask Chris Lehrich).  For example, at a convention game at ConQuest 2004, I was in a scenario ("Men in Black") where the players came up with a vastly different take on the PCs than the GM did.  He had prepared a mystery scenario, but we decided that our goal was to cover up what was happening, not discover it.  He threw clues at us such that we eventually undercovered what was happening (shortly before we blew it up).  However, there is a huge difference between his intent of "Secret agents investigate and uncover small-town horrors" and "Cleaners attempt to raze things and accidentally have clues fall in their laps".  

Moreover, this assumes that the GM is actively attempting to railroad the game.  While that's one valid case, it's not descriptive of all games.  i.e. Even if the GM potentially has the power to control direction, that doesn't necessarily mean that she does so in practice.  I would use the analogy to the referee in, say, a basketball game.  The referee has the potential power to decide which side wins.  However, under normal circumstances we would say that it is the players who decide which side wins.  

Even if he isn't literally holding a published module in his hand, the GM may decide not to arbitrarily invent things to capture the PCs and drag them to where he wants them.  The GM may instead portray a reactive environment, while the players/PCs are proactive in setting up situations and conflicts.

Hi John,

Before getting into this specifically, I wanted to be clear about what I'm thinking (your post did lead me to consider and re-consider my position in responding to it).

Firstly: I'd have thought that what an open-ended game meant was pretty intuitive and obviously that's not so (and since I don't personally run modules very often, I think that's why I hadn't thought much about that). So in a sense this is an eye-opener for me. I'll give you a good deal more description about what I meant.

Secondly: If we are talking about "who controls the game" from the standpoint of traditional Player-GM play in reference to The Impossible Thing then I think there are two fundamental takes on what "control of the game means."

Some people will tell you that if 'things happen to their characters' they aren't in control of the game. You say that just by controling how your character acts you have a lot of power over the story. I had suggested that once and been told that if I was doing that, I was 'just adding color to the GM's story' (the general turn of phrase for a player who has control of his reactions but doesn't, in some larger sense, direct the plot).
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=7447&highlight=pulp+fiction#7447

Others, as you've said, point out that depending on what one means by control, a character's reaction to events can be the meaninful measure.

The question will come down to what your standard is for "having control" or "having input" (if you meet my tragic situation with Buffy-esque quips, on can say you have taken the gravitas out of it--but if the characters the tragic situation was aimed at still all die then one can say that I, as the GM, have controlled the story).

So that seems to be a matter of opinion. Certainly most people would say the GM runs the world and the PC's run their characters isn't impossible but people regularly come here and say "I tried it and, of course, it failed--it's impossible."

Clearly the measure being in control of the game varries a lot from person to person.

Quote from: John Kim
Well, this depends on the definition of "open-ended traditional roleplaying".  I haven't seen a concrete definition of it, so I have to guess a bit.  From earlier discussion, you seem to agree this doesn't include, for example, D&D module play.  It also doesn't seem include most of the rgfa Simulationist play which I'm used to (cf. Plotless but Background-based Games (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6178) and Open Play for the Soul (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8812)).  So what exactly is it?  

Having thought about this, I don't think my distinction is as valid as I'd thought. It's harder to be as concrete about this as I had thought it would be.

The most concrete case for a closed game is one where the mechanics let you do nothing else. I think that a game of MLWM, where the players wanted to continue the lives of their characters after defeat of the master would be an example of how mechanics could close off some avenues of play.

But I think I'll drop the term. Here's what I was getting at.

If the GM is running a module "by the book" then he's at least sharing authorship with the module's writer. I don't think that in most logical senses, the GM would be said to be the "author of a game" if he's just reading the text boxes and rolling the monster's to-hit dice.

If the situation is very, very constrained and calls for almost nothing by way of judgment calls (such as how much enemies might know or what plans an NPC might have for interacting with the PC's) outside of very hard and fast rules (120' down the corridor there is a pit-trap) then, again,  I think the power assumed by the TITBB text is not accurate to the GM or the situation.

The GM is more like (and as is often called) a referee.

Additionally, the players, if they realize there is a module in play and show up for the game, may be seen (to an extent) as entering an agreement to play the module. If the GM buys the World's Largest Dungeon and you go to the house to play and then refuse to go down in, I think the GM may have a legitimate complaint.

I'd thought it'd be possible to judge the game with some respect to "scope" of the game. If the "scope" of the game was limited to the game books and the text of the module then it seemed logical to me to say it was narrower than if it was limited to a general situation and was pretty much guaranteed to mutate dramatically when the PC's act on it (a Sorcerer relationship map). I'm guessing you don't see that as especially meaningful though, and I'll have to keep thinking on that.

For the games where the GM is more like a referee and the players are aware they are there to take on a module, I think the problems associated with TITBB would be significantly different and, I'd think, a lot less prevalent.

QuoteI would tend to say that "traditional roleplaying" means that the players control their PCs, while the GM controls the rest of the background and world.  Given this setup, it seems to me that the control of direction is straightforward.  The more that the PCs are pawns of their environment, the more dominant the GM is likely to be.  Conversely, if the PCs are powerful, well-informed, and free relative to their environment, then the players are more likely to be dominant.  

As Aaron said in his first post, it seems that there is a smooth spectrum between these.  At one extreme, you could have a near-LARP-like scenario -- i.e. there are no NPCs, and thus most of the action is interaction between the players/PCs.  The GM is mostly watching.  At the other extreme would be, say, scenarios where the PCs are brainwashed agents who get their mission orders from some NPC authority, and the players are just trying to fulfill their orders as best they can.  

No argument in the terms as I think you mean them. If no forces/situation are acting on the PC's and they are the only relevant things in the game that are moving then from a sense of looking at what happens the game will be highly player-directed in the begining.

However as situation develops the GM will almost certainly have to run more and more of the world's reaction to the PC's to the point where I think usually stuff will "happen to them" (their enemies arrange some pay-back, for example).

At that point, by some definitions, the game will no longer be player directed.

Furthermore, when even free, powerful, and informed PC's try something the GM thinks won't work, the GM will veto their input.

My point is that if the players and GM get out of synch (as happened in the Sorcerer game) then even if the GM is well intentioned there will be problems since the GM must still make the world react in some way. Player direction alone doesn't run the world.

Quote from: John Kim
Well, first of all, yes.  I do have considerable power over the direction of the *story*.  Depending on how you define "game", maybe that is in the GM's hands (i.e. the GM can "beat" the PCs, no contest).  But the story does not consist of what the location is, or even whether the good guys wins.  By playing my character, I can make this situation range from Monty-Python-esque comedy (trading quips against the GM's straight men) to dramatic psychological revelation (a lot of dialogue or monologue about how this feels).  

Yeah, well, as I said, there seem to be some different opinions about how true that is.

Consider that the other problem with TITBB (the first being "I tried it, it's impossible") is said to be that, while possible, two people don't agree on which version of MJ's solutions to use.

If you are right then in order for a GM to be taking away your control of the game the Participationist GM would have to do things like control your dialog and are getting close to running your character like an NPC.

Even in your MIB game that wasn't the case. It wasn't the case in MJ's Illusionist game. It certainly wasn't the case in the Sorceror game.

Although GM's do sometimes run PC's "like NPC's"--controling the aspects that you bring up--usually it is done with reference to disadvantages (like TRoS's Flaws) and not applied to play in general.

So I don't think that it's fair to say that GM's who are trying to 'author the story' are necessiarily infringing on your dramatic psychological revelation. That was kinda my point about the text being misapplied.

Quote
Even if he isn't literally holding a published module in his hand, the GM may decide not to arbitrarily invent things to capture the PCs and drag them to where he wants them.  The GM may instead portray a reactive environment, while the players/PCs are proactive in setting up situations and conflicts.

Right--and if the players are pro-active then the game is more "player driven" than if they are reactive or if the GM sends goons to get them all the time.

As I said, though, when the world responds (and if the game continues) keeps responding, this condition is going to be far from 99% Player, 1% GM in terms of who inputs what into the game.

In my V:tM game the players decided to take over local (human) organized crime--as the GM, I would say they set up that conflict and took proactive action (it was a surprise to me)--but once that happened the input was a lot closer to 50-50 than 99-1. Certainly than 99.9-.1.

Crime hit back. Even when the PC's were on the offense, I had to determine what I thought was reasonable for them to encounter and who various bosses were and how they'd react and so on.

I recognize that this mode of play is different from "The PC's are kiddnapped and thrown in the adventure" but I think that if a player had said "I don't like games where 'things happen to my character'" then I'd have a hard time running even a 'reactive' game since, certainly, stuff *did* happen to the characters once they took on a powerful adversary.

-Marco

Quote from: Marco

Quote from: John KimAs Aaron said in his first post, it seems that there is a smooth spectrum between these.  At one extreme, you could have a near-LARP-like scenario -- i.e. there are no NPCs, and thus most of the action is interaction between the players/PCs.  The GM is mostly watching.  At the other extreme would be, say, scenarios where the PCs are brainwashed agents who get their mission orders from some NPC authority, and the players are just trying to fulfill their orders as best they can.

Quote from: John KimEven if he isn't literally holding a published module in his hand, the GM may decide not to arbitrarily invent things to capture the PCs and drag them to where he wants them.  The GM may instead portray a reactive environment, while the players/PCs are proactive in setting up situations and conflicts.

Right--and if the players are pro-active then the game is more "player driven" than if they are reactive or if the GM sends goons to get them all the time.

As I said, though, when the world responds (and if the game continues) keeps responding, this condition is going to be far from 99% Player, 1% GM in terms of who inputs what into the game.

In my V:tM game the players decided to take over local (human) organized crime--as the GM, I would say they set up that conflict and took proactive action (it was a surprise to me)--but once that happened the input was a lot closer to 50-50 than 99-1. Certainly than 99.9-.1.

Crime hit back. Even when the PC's were on the offense, I had to determine what I thought was reasonable for them to encounter and who various bosses were and how they'd react and so on.

OK, it sounds like in your game, the PCs were a relatively unified force, and the primary external conflict was the PCs vs your NPCs.  (It's pretty darn common.)  Given that as a basic assumption, then yes, the split of control is going to tend towards 50-50.  

I suspect you're treating that as being inherent, though, rather than as a very common practice.  As I said, I expect the 99.9% player-directed extreme would be LARP-like.  i.e. There aren't NPC opponents, but rather PC-vs-PC conflicts.  Imagine if in your game, some of the players were controlling organized crime and some of them were controlling the vampires.  

Given that organized crime were NPCs, though, there is still a spectrum of possible divisions of control.  Within the vampires-vs-crime conflict, how well-informed were the PCs?  My experience is that in such conflict scenarios, control is based heavily on information -- moreso than ability to win.  i.e. Even if the vampires are hugely outnumbered, they can at least control the direction of the game if they know where their opponents are and what they are attempting.

Quote from: John Kim
OK, it sounds like in your game, the PCs were a relatively unified force, and the primary external conflict was the PCs vs your NPCs.  (It's pretty darn common.)  Given that as a basic assumption, then yes, the split of control is going to tend towards 50-50.  

That's basically true, yes. They had other stuff going on but they were not against each other.

Quote
I suspect you're treating that as being inherent, though, rather than as a very common practice.  As I said, I expect the 99.9% player-directed extreme would be LARP-like.  i.e. There aren't NPC opponents, but rather PC-vs-PC conflicts.  Imagine if in your game, some of the players were controlling organized crime and some of them were controlling the vampires.  

Agreed. An all-characters-are-players-LARP with only referee-GM's won't have TITBB issues like more traiditonal forms of roleplaying do. That's one of the solutions I mentioned.

Quote
Given that organized crime were NPCs, though, there is still a spectrum of possible divisions of control.  Within the vampires-vs-crime conflict, how well-informed were the PCs?  My experience is that in such conflict scenarios, control is based heavily on information -- moreso than ability to win.  i.e. Even if the vampires are hugely outnumbered, they can at least control the direction of the game if they know where their opponents are and what they are attempting.

Well, let's talk about this: I didn't make any specific effort to control information. They started with the underworld characters they saw and 'worked their way up.' The key element to their success was to make sure that the crime-bosses didn't understand what they were up against. So I wasn't hiding information--I worked out a syndicate map based on what I thought it'd be like and they got their intel as they saw fit and took out targets as they needed (and responded when they were hit back at).

I think that the division of PC-Empowerment will be seen as very, very different based on what the player is looking for from the GM.

(a) If I had said THIS IS A BAD DIRECTION for the game and made the criminals powerful and deadly and clued in the PC's then I'd be using my GM-power to drive the game away from that, yes? To "control the story away from it."

(b) If I had said MAN, THAT'S A COOL DIRECTION FOR A STORY--I'll make sure I have some great pacing and a premise-laden backstory for them to get in and mess with then I'd be using my GM power to get them into 'my story.'

(c) If I said WHAT DO I THINK IT'D BE LIKE then I'm using my GM power to 'run the world' and the story that evolves from that may be said to be co-written (or you can say it's not a story at all if that moves you).

I think the percpetion of PC-power will be different for players who find (a), (b), and (c) dysfunctional.

I think that Joe, who wants to always be the one doing his things,  will find A to be a reduction in player-power although you've said that if I didn't interfer with your playing of your character (you could suicide against the mob if you wanted) then it wasn't controling the story.

I think Fred, who wants to play in an imaginary reality, might find (b) disempowering since I'm taking his actions in a virtuality and turning them into story with a preponderance of 'meaning' that is completely artifical and thus, meaningless.

I think Phil, who wants a Narrativist sotry, might find (c) disempowering since I've taken his action and turned it into something that may not have the premise he wants firmly grafted into it and may not evolve in the always interesting manner of a tight story.

So I don't think that player-empowerment comes without a perspective and an expectation of what the GM oughta be doing.

-Marco

Quote from: MarcoCertainly most people would say the GM runs the world and the PC's run their characters isn't impossible but people regularly come here and say "I tried it and, of course, it failed--it's impossible."

Just in case there is confusion here, I would like to call attention to the fact that what is stated here is not the same as The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast, and I cannot recall anyone ever saying that the division of credibility described here--"the GM runs the world and the PC's run their characters"--is in any way impossible.

The breakdown occurs when the referee controls what happens in the story and the players control what their characters do. That is, the referee may be thinking,

QuoteA stranger at the inn will hire the party to travel through the Ghost Hills to the castle of Baron Tudony, where they will have to retrieve the Black Rose. It's kept in the courtyard in the center of the well-guarded castle, so the only way they can get it is to go over the walls. They'll successfully avoid the Baron's air defense, take the Rose, and then travel back to the inn. On the way  up, they'll have these encounters, and on the way back they'll have these encounters, which of course they'll easily overcome.

The players meanwhile might be thinking,

QuoteWouldn't it be neat to get a ship and go after pirates?

The point is, if the players can choose what they're going to do and how they're going to do it, the referee can't decide what's going to happen in the adventure ahead (except, as the module example implies, in Trailblazing). If the referee can plan the adventure in any detail at all, then the players have surrendered their ability to control their characters to a significant degree.

I recognize that it's perfectly plausible for the referee to create the stranger, the Baron, the rose, the castle, the defenses, and the other encounters, specifically with the player character abilities in mind, and so suggest that the characters go on this adventure. The problem that arises is that the direction given to the referee means he has the power to make this the adventure that will be played, while the direction given to the players means that they have the power to decide what sort of adventure they will have.

I'm not certain that misunderstanding existed, but I didn't want it to be allowed to continue if it did.

--M. J. Young

Quote from: Marco

Quote from: John KimGiven that organized crime were NPCs, though, there is still a spectrum of possible divisions of control.  Within the vampires-vs-crime conflict, how well-informed were the PCs?  My experience is that in such conflict scenarios, control is based heavily on information -- moreso than ability to win.  i.e. Even if the vampires are hugely outnumbered, they can at least control the direction of the game if they know where their opponents are and what they are attempting.

Well, let's talk about this: I didn't make any specific effort to control information. They started with the underworld characters they saw and 'worked their way up.' The key element to their success was to make sure that the crime-bosses didn't understand what they were up against. So I wasn't hiding information--I worked out a syndicate map based on what I thought it'd be like and they got their intel as they saw fit and took out targets as they needed (and responded when they were hit back at).

Well, it's useful to know about your methods/efforts, but I was looking for something different: the actual level of information that the players had.  Even if you weren't making specific effort towards it, the results of circumstances can force the PCs into a narrow range of actions and/or reactivity.  Oftentimes it is realistic that a character doesn't have control over his own fate.  Put another way, rgfa Simulationism is not synonymous with PC proactivity.  It is a useful though not necessary technique for proactivity.  

In the past, my solution has generally been to design the PCs so that they have considerable resources -- particularly for information.  

Quote from: MarcoI think that the division of PC-Empowerment will be seen as very, very different based on what the player is looking for from the GM.

(a) If I had said THIS IS A BAD DIRECTION for the game and made the criminals powerful and deadly and clued in the PC's then I'd be using my GM-power to drive the game away from that, yes? To "control the story away from it."

(b) If I had said MAN, THAT'S A COOL DIRECTION FOR A STORY--I'll make sure I have some great pacing and a premise-laden backstory for them to get in and mess with then I'd be using my GM power to get them into 'my story.'

(c) If I said WHAT DO I THINK IT'D BE LIKE then I'm using my GM power to 'run the world' and the story that evolves from that may be said to be co-written (or you can say it's not a story at all if that moves you).

I think the percpetion of PC-power will be different for players who find (a), (b), and (c) dysfunctional.

I think that Joe, who wants to always be the one doing his things,  will find A to be a reduction in player-power although you've said that if I didn't interfer with your playing of your character (you could suicide against the mob if you wanted) then it wasn't controling the story.

I think Fred, who wants to play in an imaginary reality, might find (b) disempowering since I'm taking his actions in a virtuality and turning them into story with a preponderance of 'meaning' that is completely artifical and thus, meaningless.

I think Phil, who wants a Narrativist sotry, might find (c) disempowering since I've taken his action and turned it into something that may not have the premise he wants firmly grafted into it and may not evolve in the always interesting manner of a tight story.

So I don't think that player-empowerment comes without a perspective and an expectation of what the GM oughta be doing.

I think you have a good point here.  I have a few disparate comments:

• I didn't use the term "empowering", and it seems to me a slanted term.  No one would say they enjoy being "disempowered" -- because that implies rights that are supposed to be theirs being taken away.  I prefer Aaron's sliding scale of GM-direction to player-direction, which is more neutral and descriptive.  
  
• Control is not a synonym for enjoyment.  i.e. A player may have a high degree of control over the story and yet still not like it.  Conversely, it seems reasonable to enjoy something even if you don't have control.
  
• I most certainly did not say "if I didn't interfer with your playing of your character then it wasn't controling the story."  That sounds like absurd nonsense.  Story is a combination of character, plot, and setting.  The spotlight character is an important part of that, but not the totality. [/list:u]
  You seem to be setting up "empowerment" as a term relative to what the player wants (i.e. to Phil, "empowerment" means something different than to Joe).  I would prefer a different terms for what different people are looking for.

Quote from: John Kim
Well, it's useful to know about your methods/efforts, but I was looking for something different: the actual level of information that the players had.  Even if you weren't making specific effort towards it, the results of circumstances can force the PCs into a narrow range of actions and/or reactivity.  Oftentimes it is realistic that a character doesn't have control over his own fate.  Put another way, rgfa Simulationism is not synonymous with PC proactivity.  It is a useful though not necessary technique for proactivity.  

In the past, my solution has generally been to design the PCs so that they have considerable resources -- particularly for information.  

Ah, I see. Well, firstly--it was a change of direction during an established game: the PC's were already created so it was going with what they had established already (i.e. they had contacts in the Vampire world but very little in the mundane).

Information-wise they were about two steps behind me: as this was during a game, I was working to stay ahead of them (the first case it caught me off guard with zero prep and I made some stuff up based on what I thought seemed reasonable). After that, I made a tree-diagram with a few spotty notes (Jack. Smart, runs night-club. 5 armed security).

Their intel was based on questioning people at various places in the hierarchy.

Quote
I think you have a good point here.  I have a few disparate comments:

• I didn't use the term "empowering", and it seems to me a slanted term.  No one would say they enjoy being "disempowered" -- because that implies rights that are supposed to be theirs being taken away.  I prefer Aaron's sliding scale of GM-direction to player-direction, which is more neutral and descriptive.  
  
• Control is not a synonym for enjoyment.  i.e. A player may have a high degree of control over the story and yet still not like it.  Conversely, it seems reasonable to enjoy something even if you don't have control.
  
• I most certainly did not say "if I didn't interfer with your playing of your character then it wasn't controling the story."  That sounds like absurd nonsense.  Story is a combination of character, plot, and setting.  The spotlight character is an important part of that, but not the totality. [/list:u]
  You seem to be setting up "empowerment" as a term relative to what the player wants (i.e. to Phil, "empowerment" means something different than to Joe).  I would prefer a different terms for what different people are looking for.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Can you elaborate more on this:

Quote
Well, first of all, yes. I do have considerable power over the direction of the *story*. Depending on how you define "game", maybe that is in the GM's hands (i.e. the GM can "beat" the PCs, no contest). But the story does not consist of what the location is, or even whether the good guys wins. By playing my character, I can make this situation range from Monty-Python-esque comedy (trading quips against the GM's straight men) to dramatic psychological revelation (a lot of dialogue or monologue about how this feels).

In the context of a game where your presentation of your character (dialog, emotions, personal behavior, etc.) is not infringed on but the GM is controling locality and what I called "direction of the game?"

Although Aaron's scale does seem pretty intuitive for fantasy, how would you apply it to a modern-day detective game?  It would seem the detectives are informed in the general sense, free in the sense most western countries mean it, and powerful with police powers--but the nature of the game is still that the GM thows myseries at them.

-Marco

Quote from: M. J. Young

Quote from: MarcoCertainly most people would say the GM runs the world and the PC's run their characters isn't impossible but people regularly come here and say "I tried it and, of course, it failed--it's impossible."

Just in case there is confusion here, I would like to call attention to the fact that what is stated here is not the same as The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast, and I cannot recall anyone ever saying that the division of credibility described here--"the GM runs the world and the PC's run their characters"--is in any way impossible.

I think that if you're not invested in reading a great deal into the analogy posed by TITBB's text that is what it's saying.

The problem is that when someone explaining TITBB says "it's not possible for both the GM and the Players to control the story at the same time" (which is what I have been told is impossible) that means absolutely nothing concrete.

The problem rests with the fact that 'Story' and therefore control-of-the-story in an RPG context isn't defined. When we use the term 'Story' to refer to anything specific, it becomes an argument of semantics. What 'control of the story' means is entirely up for grabs since story (as has been pointed out) can mean many different things to many people and even with context it isn't clear.

In a Narrativist perspective, TITBB is impossible because the raw Narrativist defintion of story precludes the GM from having anything that could be considered 'control' over it.

This isn't anything but tautological: it's very possible to look at a presumably Narrativist game and say that, indeed, the players were playing in the GM's story and the GM was, in fact, controling it.

It just depends on whose standard you want to use. I could certainly make that case for the Sorcerer game I linked to (what I could strongly make the case for was that the GM expected the players to play in a story he controlled and when they tried not to, there were problems, just like 'TITBB predicts.')

I could also make the case that a script-doomed CoC character in a bog-standard investigative game controls the story by how he responds to his pre-determined fate making it either a tragedy, a triumph, or a commedy.

Ultimately, to my recollection where I have seen it, the Impossible Thing text doing nothing more than setting up a very, very high level distinction between the Player and GM roles. Roles that can be as easily described as "The GM runs the world and the players play their characters."*

Look at your four solutions: the GM and Player roles, at a high level are all identical. Even in Playing Bass, the players aren't running NPC's doing prep-work on the mystery, and so on in a traditional game.

Even in Participationism, the players are still playing their characters.

-Marco
* However, this doesn't give one much of a semantic feel for the idea that an RPG can somehow somehow 'create a story.' It also doesn't acknowledge that prep-work for a game, even a Narrativist one, is in some ways, like authorship and that running a game is often, in some ways, like story-telling.

It also isn't as easily grasped by people new to roleplaying ('what does run the world mean?')

Quote from: M. J. Young

QuoteA stranger at the inn will hire the party to travel through the Ghost Hills to the castle of Baron Tudony, where they will have to retrieve the Black Rose. It's kept in the courtyard in the center of the well-guarded castle, so the only way they can get it is to go over the walls. They'll successfully avoid the Baron's air defense, take the Rose, and then travel back to the inn. On the way  up, they'll have these encounters, and on the way back they'll have these encounters, which of course they'll easily overcome.

The players meanwhile might be thinking,

QuoteWouldn't it be neat to get a ship and go after pirates?

I wanted to look at this separately. I'm not sure where the "standard for control" is set here--but maybe we can figure that out. If the players say "let's go after pirates" and the GM says "okay."

1. If the GM pulls out his 'pirate adventure' that he had also cooked up, does that mean it reverts back to being his story?

2. If the GM stops play and makes a pirate adventure does that become his story then?

3. If the GM runs things off the cuff in a reactive manner, does that make it the PC's story?

ALSO:
(a) If the GM says: I'll present those pirates in a way that has a lot of premise--the female pirate is the character's sister whom he believed was dead, etc, etc.--does that make him any more or less the 'author' of the action? What if the player feels pretty shanghaied by this revelation that seems really the hell unlikely and is just there to push the game into the 'GM's story'?

(b) If the GM works out pirate encounter tables and trade rotues and sea and wind tables and then runs it 'virtuality,' will this make it less the GM's story since he's more of a referee and less of an author?

(c) If the PC's get to go after the pirates but the first pirate they run into is Black Beard and he takes them captive after trashing their ship and hauls them to the lost island of goodies and makes them march down into the ancient tomb, does the fact that they went after the pirates make it their story? What if it was a natural (all rolls on the table) result of his work on pirates, routes, and weather charts--i.e. played fair. What if the GM just determined that that would happen, but once in the dungeon they are totally in control of their actions?

I don't think that story control is any kind of a clear thing when the dynamic of play is a complex feedback cycle.

Once someone told me that TITBB was a question of "who drives." Having thought about it for some time, I don't think there's an easy answer to that--in, say, a somewhat evolved Playing Bass game where consequences of the player's former actions are in motion coming back to them, who does drive?

-Marco

Quote from: Marco

Quote from: John Kim

• I most certainly did not say "if I didn't interfer with your playing of your character then it wasn't controling the story."  That sounds like absurd nonsense.  Story is a combination of character, plot, and setting.  The spotlight character is an important part of that, but not the totality. [/list:u]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Can you elaborate more on this:

Quote from: John KimWell, first of all, yes. I do have considerable power over the direction of the *story*. Depending on how you define "game", maybe that is in the GM's hands (i.e. the GM can "beat" the PCs, no contest). But the story does not consist of what the location is, or even whether the good guys wins. By playing my character, I can make this situation range from Monty-Python-esque comedy (trading quips against the GM's straight men) to dramatic psychological revelation (a lot of dialogue or monologue about how this feels).

In the context of a game where your presentation of your character (dialog, emotions, personal behavior, etc.) is not infringed on but the GM is controling locality and what I called "direction of the game?"

Sure.  My point here was that this is still potentially somewhere on the sliding scale -- i.e. the players still have some input/control, though obviously not total.  When I said that I have "power", I didn't mean to imply 100% total power, but rather partial power -- maybe less than 50% even, but more than, say, 25%.  (Obviously the numbers are semi-arbitrary.)  If my PC was free to go anywhere in the world, then I would have more control.  

You're right that "story" is a vague term, though.  I give a definition in my Narrative Paradigms essay, but it's still quite subjective.  I would take the analogy of a known story from literature -- say Hamlet, for example.  Imagine if Hamlet had tried his best to walk away from the castle and survive, but was captured, hemmed in, or otherwise forced into various events which lead to the deaths in the finale.  I think most people would say that is a very different story from Shakespeare's version.  

Quote from: MarcoAlthough Aaron's scale does seem pretty intuitive for fantasy, how would you apply it to a modern-day detective game?  It would seem the detectives are informed in the general sense, free in the sense most western countries mean it, and powerful with police powers--but the nature of the game is still that the GM thows myseries at them.

Well, first a few caveats.  The criteria (informed, free, powerful) are relative.  They also aren't definitive -- i.e. all three can be true and in practice the game is still GM-directed.  Well, I would say that pretty much by definition, in a mystery scenario the PCs / players are not well-informed.  i.e. They don't know what is going on.  Also, I meant free in a practical sense rather than legal (i.e non-slave).  If they are more-or-less obliged to take a case that is offered to them, they aren't free in this sense.  Lastly, western police powers are designed to strictly limit power to the individual policeman to protect against the sort of abuses which occur in a police state.  So, no, I wouldn't call this powerful, either.  Let me offer two examples of modern-day campaigns:

1) A modern military action game.  The PCs get extensive and largely accurate briefings on what their target will be.  They also generally have the upper hand in the fights (i.e. they generally succeed with low PC casualties).  Here the PCs are well-informed and powerful, but not free since they are following orders.

2) A superhero game.  The PCs are poorly informed -- i.e. they will go on patrol and generally be surprised by what they find.  They are, however, free and powerful.  They are free -- i.e. no one is requiring them to be superheroes, and they're not subject to police procedure (or even many civilian laws).  They are clearly powerful.  

Now, there are still many ambiguities which you cite.  This isn't rocket science, but I think the distinction (i.e. spectrum of control) is still useful.  I don't think that there is any way to, say, objectively distinguish a 50-50 split of power vs a 60-40 split.  But hopefully we can refine it.

Quote from: John Kim
Sure.  My point here was that this is still potentially somewhere on the sliding scale -- i.e. the players still have some input/control, though obviously not total.  When I said that I have "power", I didn't mean to imply 100% total power, but rather partial power -- maybe less than 50% even, but more than, say, 25%.  (Obviously the numbers are semi-arbitrary.)  If my PC was free to go anywhere in the world, then I would have more control.  

I want to think on the rest of your post and respond later--since I think you make a very good, clear case for examining power-struggle issues in a specific context.

But I wanted to address the idea of a gradient of power-sharing as a general possibility.

I don't think that everyone would agree with the idea that "PC power" rightly expressed as a percentage.

I don't remember the thread (I don't think it was a TITBB thread specifically)--but the term "control of the story" (or whatever the exact terms were) was meant in the 100% boolean sense. In other words, if one person was in control of the story the other person couldn't be.

That was why TITBB was 'impossible.'

Now, if we define power as 'control of the story' but look at it as a range of percents then we can see that two ways.

1. If we have (somehow) decided that there's a 75% GM-power, 25% Player-power split then three out of every 4 story decisions are made by the GM.

Under that defintion it is impossible for two people to be in control of the same decision at the same time--but we have to figure out what a 1:3 decision split means in terms of players being main-characters and GM's-being authors.

That isn't clear. Truly it seems like even a massive 3:1 edge would still make the characters co-authors in a meaningful sense (or 'main characters' in terms of the impossible text).

Really, it isn't clear at what point 'being a main character' becomes impossible because your input to the game didn't pan-out. If the GM overturns one of your decisions out of 100, does that count you out for the whole 'story?' I wouldn't think so--but then I think there is a lot more complexity to looking at power-sharing than just asking 'who drives.'

2. The other way to look at a power-sharing split is that the GM offers one kind of input to the context of the decision and the player offers another kind. In this case it is probably not really possible to say either "who has control" or "what the percentages are."

The idea of a player's portrayal of his character in a scrpitedly-doomed CoC game to make the game a commedy is this kind of split. One observer could say he has 100% control of the *story* while another observe might put the player at 0%.

But it's clearly not impossible for each player to give their input at the same time and each see themselves as empowered story-creators from the same event.

I believe that both versions are profitable ways of examining power-sharing in traditional RPG's. But if either are possible then it's no longer clear why "the GM being the author of a story" where the players "are the main characters" is impossible since clearly there's simply a gradient of story-control at play and even if the GM has 90% it isn't proper to call him 'the author of the story' nor to say that the players make no authorial decisions.

Note: It seems to me that in your examples you are making a substantiallly philosophically different and very valid point about what the PC's are like compared to their opposition and how much ability they have to 'turn down' a 'mission' (or whatever).

I think this is very much a profitable thing to look at with respect and I'll address that after I've thought about it some more.

-Marco

Quote from: John Kim
Well, first a few caveats.  The criteria (informed, free, powerful) are relative.  They also aren't definitive -- i.e. all three can be true and in practice the game is still GM-directed.  Well, I would say that pretty much by definition, in a mystery scenario the PCs / players are not well-informed.  i.e. They don't know what is going on.  Also, I meant free in a practical sense rather than legal (i.e non-slave).  If they are more-or-less obliged to take a case that is offered to them, they aren't free in this sense.  Lastly, western police powers are designed to strictly limit power to the individual policeman to protect against the sort of abuses which occur in a police state.  So, no, I wouldn't call this powerful, either.  Let me offer two examples of modern-day campaigns:

1) A modern military action game.  The PCs get extensive and largely accurate briefings on what their target will be.  They also generally have the upper hand in the fights (i.e. they generally succeed with low PC casualties).  Here the PCs are well-informed and powerful, but not free since they are following orders.

2) A superhero game.  The PCs are poorly informed -- i.e. they will go on patrol and generally be surprised by what they find.  They are, however, free and powerful.  They are free -- i.e. no one is requiring them to be superheroes, and they're not subject to police procedure (or even many civilian laws).  They are clearly powerful.  

Now, there are still many ambiguities which you cite.  This isn't rocket science, but I think the distinction (i.e. spectrum of control) is still useful.  I don't think that there is any way to, say, objectively distinguish a 50-50 split of power vs a 60-40 split.  But hopefully we can refine it.

Okay: having thought about this, what is, IMO, being measured is the level of direct in-game force (not Force--just ... force, effect, etc.) that the situation is likely to apply to them.

It's measured in things like the combat-match-ups and patrons and the amount of hidden knowledge in things they do.

I want to apply Aaron's measure to two game's I've written up here (which you have read):

1. After The War: we had very little knowledge of the situation, were free in that we had no authority figures pushing us around, and were quite powerful.

However, the starting situation concerned a problem which we were wrapped around: we couldn't connect to the network. If we chose not to engage with that, we could--but there would be consequences (we would be facing an unsatisfying life).

In this game we were highly inclined to work around the GM's situation--but on the other hand we were proactive and so powerful that even the high-end bad guys had real trouble dealing with us.

It certainly felt like we were highly autonomous as we outwitted and out gunned our opponents and took the battle to them--indeed, decided even to fight it and decided who we would save.

But on the other hand, if we'd decided to go treasure hunting in the south seas the game would've collapsed in that (a) nothing would be prepared and (b) our characters just weren't relevant to that.

So in one sense it's very 'low' power and in another, very high.

2. Salga Del Mundo: In this the characters had almost no knowledge. One had a patron that she had to keep moderately happy but the other did not. They were mostly free and their power was substantial: the scientist was excellent at science and the mystic artist was well regarded.

They were not powerful enough to push around the mayor or commander a power-station without help.

Again, I'm not sure how to measure this. If they had decided to leave town, they could've--there would have been serious consequences but I wouldn't have stopped them.

Also: they were almost entirely pro-active in their actions--to the extent that their lack of knowledge (they didn't ever address the mystery of the three personailties) was immaterial. They addressed their problems in a manner mostly unrelated to a large body of my hidden knowledge.

How would you rate these games on Aaron's continium?

-Marco

Quote from: MarcoI believe that both versions are profitable ways of examining power-sharing in traditional RPG's. But if either are possible then it's no longer clear why "the GM being the author of a story" where the players "are the main characters" is impossible since clearly there's simply a gradient of story-control at play and even if the GM has 90% it isn't proper to call him 'the author of the story' nor to say that the players make no authorial decisions.

Well, I agree with you 100% (smirk) that control should be considered as a gradient/spectrum rather than a binary choice of GM-author or player-author.  However, to be charitable to TITBB as a concept, I think even assuming a spectrum, games may imply contradictory levels of control.  i.e. If a game does imply a 50-50 split of control, that is not TITBB.  However, using the percentages analogy, a game might imply 90% GM control and also 90% player control.  That would be TITBB.  

I think there are cases of such contradiction.  My feeling is that a linear-plot game like _Deadlands_ embodies this.  The advice to the GM suggests laying out a fixed sequence of scenes.  However, the advice to the players doesn't express that the players should follow the GM's lead for where to go.  Arguably, Feng Shui does a little better at this, since it is clearer to the players that they are supposed to proceed on to the next set-piece action scene.  

Then again, I am perhaps biased because I don't like linear-plot games.  A more charitable reading of Deadlands would be that it is trying to suggest a workable split of control, but perhaps not expressing it well.  

Quote from: MarcoNote: It seems to me that in your examples you are making a substantiallly philosophically different and very valid point about what the PC's are like compared to their opposition and how much ability they have to 'turn down' a 'mission' (or whatever).

I think this is very much a profitable thing to look at with respect and I'll address that after I've thought about it some more.

Thanks.  Maybe there should be a separate thread on "player control of plot/story/game given a traditional GM role".

Quote from: MarcoIf the players say "let's go after pirates" and the GM says "okay."

At that instant, the rest of the post becomes irrelevant. What you have there is a subjective interpretation of the text that eliminates The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast by assuming the two sides are supposed to compromise. Nothing in the text says that they are to do that.

If the referee says, "O.K.", he has just decided that he's going to give control of the story to the players on that point. That's a compromise; that's a decision that he is not going to control the story.

He could as well say, "I'm sorry, there are no ships available." If somehow the players make ship available, he can say, "You wander up and down the coast for a month, and then find you are completely out of supplies and funds. Coming back to port, you remember that you were offered that job of going to get the Black Rose." In essence, if the referee takes his instructions completely seriously, he is perfectly justified in saying, I don't care what kind of adventure you or your characters want to pursue, this is the adventure that I've planned, and you're going to do that or nothing.

And in essence if the players take their side of it seriously, they are perfectly justified in saying, We don't care what you may or may not have planned, we're going to take off and do what we want in your world.

As soon as you propose any way at all of resolving this conflict, including "so the referee decides to go with what the players suggest" (or "so the players decide to go with what the referee suggests") you have provided a resolution to the impossible thing that replaces what it really says with what you think it means.

Again, the problem is that it is just as reasonable to suppose it means the referee goes with the player's choice as it is to suppose that it means the players are stuck with the referee's plotline. However the tension is resolved, that becomes this gaming group's distribution of credibility. The book didn't give that to you, and ten different gaming groups might each come up with a distribution of credibility different enough from each other that players who moved between them would be completely off balance in how they were supposed to play--from "No, man, we can't do that because the referee wants us to do this" to "What do you mean, what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to do what you want--I don't have anything prepared."

Every time you attempt to demonstrate that TITBB does not exist, you provide an assumed resolution to the problem. No one is saying that people don't find resolutions to the problem. They're saying that they do find resolutions to the problem, but these are the resolutions that are developed by individual groups, not the instructions in the game, and the players think that they're doing what the book instructed (and that anyone not doing it the way they do is doing it wrong). TITBB does not stop people from playing. It forces them to create their own system and tricks them into thinking that's what the book told them to do.

If the referee thinks that he has every right to force the players to go into the ghost hills for the black rose, and the players think that they don't have to do what the referee prepares but can go off hunting pirates if that's what they want, the game breaks down unless someone compromises. As soon as someone compromises, you've created the precedent for distribution of credibility in that game. The way you're playing has nothing to with the text of the book. It has to do with your decision regarding how to interpret the text such that it works for your group.

"Unconscious accommodations for TITBB" is exactly what this thread is about: you read the text, recognize that it can't mean what it says, and immediately impose your interpretation on it, but then think that that's what the text says. It isn't.

--M. J. Young

Quote from: M. J. YoungAs soon as you propose any way at all of resolving this conflict, including "so the referee decides to go with what the players suggest" (or "so the players decide to go with what the referee suggests") you have provided a resolution to the impossible thing that replaces what it really says with what you think it means.

Quote from: M. J. Young"Unconscious accommodations for TITBB" is exactly what this thread is about: you read the text, recognize that it can't mean what it says, and immediately impose your interpretation on it, but then think that that's what the text says. It isn't.

I think there are a few ground rules which need to be established for discussion:

1) We need to establish what text is being discussed.  On the one hand, there is the text of real games like Vampire: The Masquerade or Deadlands.  On the other hand, there is the phrasing invented by Ron when coining the term TITBB -- and other phrasings since then.  These are not the same text, nor do they have exactly the same meaning.  

2) We need to establish how you define "meaning".  There is the intended meaning of the author, a variety of literalist interpretations of an isolated phrase, and the perceived meaning by actual gamers who read and play the game.  For example, Deadlands starts a chapter with "You're the Marshal".  Now, if we go with a brain-dead literalist interpretation, everyone who sees this concludes that they are the Marshal for their actual game.  So the game has a "problem" that anyone who reads that page thinks they're the GM and the game dissolves into arguments.  

As far as I'm concerned, the relevant answers are the intended meaning (singular) and the actual perceived meanings (plural).  Now, if all the actual gamers who read Deadlands come to the same conclusion, and that conclusion corresponds to the intended meaning of the author -- then as far as I am concerned the author successfully communicated his point, and I could care less about some pedant who claims that the "real meaning" is different.  

Now, as it happens, I don't think this is true.  I think that the Deadlands text is vague and does in fact lead to conflicting interpretations -- and indeed, the author may well have intended different interpretations among players and GMs.  But the important thing in my mind is how the actual text is actually read, not some hypothetical conflict over interpreting hypothetical text.

Quote from: MJ Young
At that instant, the rest of the post becomes irrelevant. What you have there is a subjective interpretation of the text that eliminates The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast by assuming the two sides are supposed to compromise. Nothing in the text says that they are to do that.

Telling me what the text says with regards to compromise assumes I share your opinon of what those words mean.

I *don't*--I can clearly see that the context is an RPG where words like 'author' and 'main characters' are undefined.

The idea that "The GM is the author of the story and the players are the main characters" has some specific meaning with regards to power-split or is the basis for a concrete social dynamic is a very specific reading of that text that is, IMO, untennable.

It doesn't address issues like compromise. It doesn't touch on power-division issues like Playing Bass or Illusionism or any of that. Those are all far below the level than the analogy goes.

Here's some text from TROS:

Quote
"Finally, there's one more rule that every Seneschal (and player) should know by heart. It's the most important rule: the Seneschal is always right. That's right, we said, "THE SENESCHAL IS ALWAYS RIGHT!" You are in charge of the game."
The Riddle of Steel, pg 233

This doesn't use analogies like "author" and "main character"--this tells readers that they have no recourse nor right to argue or question the GM.  Since it's the "most important rule" it means that the GM can decide to have a peasant boy beat my SA-firing wizard with a small twig and I have no complaint?

That having read the simplist, and "most important" rule, I needn't read any others?

I find the idea that this text has any kind of significant impact on the game whatsoever to be pretty strongly reaching. TRoS is  sometimes considered coherently Narrativist here: as a stated rule this should destroy it.

Available data suggests it doesn't.

-Marco
[ Here is a link that discusses some other text in games: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=5917

There's plenty of text that, IMO, ain't great advice (CoC makes some assumptions that are only modestly reasonable. GURPS seems slightly confused in places). However none of this is as presumably damaging as TRoS's advice and none of it is the analogy in question either.]

Quote from: Marco
I *don't*--I can clearly see that the context is an RPG where words like 'author' and 'main characters' are undefined.

Then you are going to struggle through life because words are almost never defined in the same text as they are used.

Quote
The idea that "The GM is the author of the story and the players are the main characters" has some specific meaning with regards to power-split or is the basis for a concrete social dynamic is a very specific reading of that text that is, IMO, untennable.

Umm, thats the point.  It is not concrete and cannot be, even though it appears reasonable enough at first glance.

Quote
It doesn't address issues like compromise. It doesn't touch on power-division issues like Playing Bass or Illusionism or any of that. Those are all far below the level than the analogy goes.

Well of course it does not becuase the texts we are discussing predate these concepts, and these concepts are local to the Forge.  This is not the first time you have made this error of projection.

Once again I fail to find any coherence in your argument - it appears to be another objection for the sake of objecting.

Gareth,
There's a real issue of talking about power split, of different people's ideas about how to achieve working power-splits, and what things like 'control of the story' means.

However, a tacit acceptance that game book-text is significantly responsible for dysfunction makes the foundation of discussion here overly simplisitc.

When I can show you:
1. Posts here where TITBB's verbatim text was used to functionally explain RPG-play to a batch of new players.
2. Examples of 'who-drives' (or 'who controls the story' or whatever) problems in Sorcerer play where that text doesn't exist and the GM is a Forge regular.
3. Text from TRoS, a well regarded, often-seen-as-Narrativist game, that would seem to have at least as dramatic an effect as the actual TITBB 'quote' yet doesn't seem to seriously impact people's impressions of it.

Then I think it's obvious that the situation is a lot more complex than it's been considered here. Part of that reason is the sacred-cow that if the GM is "in some way the author" then the players cannot be said to be in some way "the main characters."

I submit John's two points (that we, mostly, do not discuss real game text and that discussions center on what the 'real meaning' of the words* are) make it pretty damn clear that any actual issue is being avoided.

Quote from: contracycle

Quote
The idea that "The GM is the author of the story and the players are the main characters" has some specific meaning with regards to power-split or is the basis for a concrete social dynamic is a very specific reading of that text that is, IMO, untennable.

Umm, thats the point.  It is not concrete and cannot be, even though it appears reasonable enough at first glance.

That's not the point.

The TITBB's (The Forge's) reading of these words is a one-true-wayism particular to The Forge. That one-true-way is that the absurd interpertation is the only one that can reasonably said to be correct.

MJ argues that the idea that being a GM is often in some way like being an author and that being a player is in some way like being a main character is an unconscious revision of the text.

MJ tries to tell me what the 'the text is really saying'--but that's just like some roleplayer telling me I'm playing wrong because I'm not playing a game his way.

That I can get another, reasonable, meaning from TITBB's text means that the foundation of TITBB is faulty. Not because we might disagree about what it is saying--no. Because one side of the argument (you) claim I'm unreasonable to read the analogy the way I do.

You've no foundation for that claim. A GM who does the prep-work of a relationship map can, indeed, be seen as the 'author of the story' and the players who play in that scenario can be seen as the 'main characters.'

MJ isn't saying the text could mean something else, he's saying that the text cannot be interperted the way I have and that my doing so is an unconscious re-write of the words.

Claiming that one has found the only true-way to read or do something is endemic to roleplaying (among other things) but it shouldn't be mistaken for a convincing argument.

Quote

Quote
It doesn't address issues like compromise. It doesn't touch on power-division issues like Playing Bass or Illusionism or any of that. Those are all far below the level than the analogy goes.

Well of course it does not becuase the texts we are discussing predate these concepts, and these concepts are local to the Forge.  This is not the first time you have made this error of projection.

Once again I fail to find any coherence in your argument - it appears to be another objection for the sake of objecting.

Well, I think the focus is on the analogy and not on the actual text. I've quoted a supposed rule from TRoS and we could discuss the impact of that. We're not doing it.

Why not? Because we're arguing about the proper reading of an analogy--one that must be taken out of context in order to say anything specific.

Here is some text from Kult:

Quote
"A planned adventure doesn't mean that the Game-master should dictate the actions of the player charaters. If they don't act in the way you had hoped, you will have to adapt and change your adventure to accomodate them."
--Kult (2001) pg 286

It also says:

Quote
"If the characters do something that threatens to ruin the adventure entirely, give them a prod in the right direction. Send in an NPC with guiding information, or invent an incident that points to where yoy want the acton to go ... Role-playing isn't fun if you are stuck ... But remember [be discrete] at all times, the players must feel that they are in full control of what their characters choose to do."
--Kult (2001) pg 286

Now, I can choose to read this as contradictory. I can say that having a 'right direction' means the GM is controling the story and giving the players an illusion that they control their characters. Does this really have a dramatic impact on players and GM's? I don't know (I tend to think not so much--I suspect the way that the description of GM-player interaction in the combat section of a traditional game is more important than the how-to-GM advice for a lot of people).

If we want to discuss what impact this might have on players then that's a fine discussion.

We can even discuss 'what it means to be in control of the story' since I guarantee that there will be fertile ground for analysis. I think with all the work that has presumably done here, even Forge posters will disagree about what these basic concepts mean.

In order get to that, though, we have to get away from just blaming the impossible thing for dysfunction and leaving it at that (when there are Actual Play examples to the contrary). Claiming you 'really know what it's about' or 'really know what it means' is really not looking at the fundamental underpinnings of the problem which can exist in any traditional game without that text.

It's just finding an acceptable target to pin the blame on.

-Marco
* "The GM is the author of the story and the players direct the actions of the protagonists."

This is from the glossary. We will have to take it for granted that it's in reference to an RPG. I understand that it was first attributed to AD&D--some similar text at least. However, I think, for instance, that games like Kult and Vampire, both of which are supposed to be conceptually based on this idea, do things very differently with regards to meta-plot, splat-books, and advice: just saying they all have the same irrational basis is, again, IMO, unproductive simplification.

Hey Jaik,

Is any of the current discourse helpful to you?

Best,
Ron

Quote from: Marco
However, a tacit acceptance that game book-text is significantly responsible for dysfunction makes the foundation of discussion here overly simplisitc.

The TITBB's (The Forge's) reading of these words is a one-true-wayism particular to The Forge. That one-true-way is that the absurd interpertation is the only one that can reasonably said to be correct.

There's a major difference between an observation that commands some agreement and an assertion of a one true way.  You make this much more personal and vituperative than it needs to be.

I don't care particularly whether you believe me or not, but way back in 1985 when I was running a school RPG club, I produced a big poster for an event sorta like a freshers fair.  And in that poster I specifically made the TITBB error, describing play as a story and the players as running the characters in that story.  I made the argument myself way way way before I had anything to do with the forge or RPG theory in any respect.

That does not strike me as weird - many people have similar experiences.  And the source of this problem was the RPG texts I was reading that did make this claim - I'd even say that for a while in the 80's, it was THE claim to make about RPG to explain it to people who had no idea about it.  I'm confident there are numerous Dragon articles making the argument.  Agreeing with the principles of the TITBB is only agreeing that the name describes a real phenomenon.  As with so many things, if you are adamant that you have never conceived this nor heard of anyone who has, I can only say bully for you but so what.  One persons incredulity counts for nought in the grand scheme of things.  And frankly, if you think the degree of critical thought on the Forge is so low that one person proposed this and everyone immediately accepted it like nodding automata than why bother arguing with us idiots?

Quote from: contracycle

Quote from: Marco
However, a tacit acceptance that game book-text is significantly responsible for dysfunction makes the foundation of discussion here overly simplisitc.

The TITBB's (The Forge's) reading of these words is a one-true-wayism particular to The Forge. That one-true-way is that the absurd interpertation is the only one that can reasonably said to be correct.

There's a major difference between an observation that commands some agreement and an assertion of a one true way.  You make this much more personal and vituperative than it needs to be.

Gareth,
Those two quotes address two different things. Firstly, I'm calling it one-true-wayism because that's what it is.

Guy A: "TITBB Text means X and only X."
Guy B: "Well, no, it can also be read to mean Y."
Guy A: "You're wrong. It only means X. You are unconsciously re-writing it in order to read it as Y."

I don't think I am.

Secondly: As to thinking that I can control the plot of a game? I've done that too--but it wasn't because of the game-books. If anything, the game books (including the GM-player dungeon example in the DMG and the combat system in AD&D) showed me that there was a pretty definite distinction between the roles even if it wasn't always clear what it was.

It was more because:
(a) I assumed that everyone would react similiarly to *me* in a given situation.
(b) I assumed everyone would like the same things I did.
(c) In some cases I didn't 'have the juice' to do other things (the PC's want to avoid the adventure and start a weapons shop--how do I handle this!?)
(d) General power-issues that had nothing to do with role in the game (i.e. I argued with some players just 'because'.)

If someone cites a specific piece of text as their reason for being railroady and claimed they had thought deeply about the game (say GURPS, whose text comes up in an Impossible Thing thread) and had come to the conclusion that they could dictate all the action of a story, I think looking deeply at that and asking questions could be very valuable (was that a reasonable thing to think based on the context of the rest of the game?).

Especially because metaplot, linear-campaign design, GM-advice, and mechanics that set expectaions of play are all different things. It isn't clear which, or all of these TITBB really refers to.

-Marco

Quote from: contracycleAnd frankly, if you think the degree of critical thought on the Forge is so low that one person proposed this and everyone immediately accepted it like nodding automata than why bother arguing with us idiots?

I don't think anyone is being an idiot and I don't think that  there isn't acutallly a problem out there in RPG-land concerning how participants set up a social dynamic for getting input into a game. For example, if a game sets up a linear, scene-based scenario, there is a real quesiton as to what to do when Scene N+1 doesn't logically follow from Scene N.

However, I think that the absolutist element of the dialog around the quote obsfuscates the issue. Only some of the problems attributed to TITBB are structural (as in the case of linear-plot games). Others are expectational (as, I would argue, in the case of the Sorcerer game). I think hardly any of them are based on 'what is roleplaying' text--which is where I've seen anything like that quote.

The Big GNS essay, which coined the term, says (to my read) 'a bunch of games are based on this principle which is absurd.' I think that's overly simplisitc. I'd get rid of it and start piece-meal looking at different elements of game design, setting-design, GM-responsibility, etc.

I haven't called anyone an idiot or a moron or anything like that.

-Marco

Quote from: Marco
Guy A: "TITBB Text means X and only X."
Guy B: "Well, no, it can also be read to mean Y."
Guy A: "You're wrong. It only means X. You are unconsciously re-writing it in order to read it as Y."

Guy A coined the term and is the only existing authority as to what it means.  Guy A is not answerable to anyone for the term, only for the accuracy of their analysis.  Guy B has no business telling Guy A what he "should have" said or meant in Guy B's opinion.

Quote
Especially because metaplot, linear-campaign design, GM-advice, and mechanics that set expectations of play are all different things. It isn't clear which, or all of these TITBB really refers to.

IMO it refers to all of those, roughly speaking.  Because they can all be seen as attempts to impose Story on play from the GM and one might argue are all making the TITBB error.  However, you insistence to nailing this down to a specific piece of text in a specific publication is counterproductive I think - my perception, rightly or wrongly, is that it is a general belief that pervades the hobby subculture - and some people have suggested that it became pervasive in the 80's when Story became the big buzzword.

Now all of this might be mistaken, and you can object to the analysis and the identification of the phenomenon, but you can't object to the fact that term has been coined to indicate the (perceived) phenomenon.  Thats all I have to say on the matter - lets talk about substance instead of definitions.

Quote from: contracycle

Quote from: Marco
Guy A: "TITBB Text means X and only X."
Guy B: "Well, no, it can also be read to mean Y."
Guy A: "You're wrong. It only means X. You are unconsciously re-writing it in order to read it as Y."

Guy A coined the term and is the only existing authority as to what it means.  Guy A is not answerable to anyone for the term, only for the accuracy of their analysis.  Guy B has no business telling Guy A what he "should have" said or meant in Guy B's opinion.

I greatly agree that I'd rather discuss specifics and I'm with you there*. I have to say that I do have a bit of a problem with the way you have framed this argument.

What you are saying is that the conclusion of the analysis of several games is phrased in such a way as to have two confusing meanings and that only the author could know which of them is right. The analysis (in the Big GNS Essay) never says why the concept is absurd, only that it is.

If the conclusion was that: "These games are based on a foundation that no players ever need comprimise on anything in order to play" then that could be stated very clearly and while it might be hard to back up in many cases (no game that I know of says clearly that no one will need to comprimise) it wouldn't create any confusion about what had been concluded.

However, what you are calling the conclusion of the analysis uses the exact words and constructions that really, actually have been used to describe the basic dynamic of RPG's (both here on this board and in books).

In other words, if you are right, then the phrase makes the same mistake as the text it is analyzing: the boiled down analysis of the game-text has the same vagueness as the text itself and we are left to aruge that only the author is qualified to correctly discern what it means (Ron in TITBB, various game authors in the case of RPG's).

If I wanted to make a case that the phrasing led to problems in communication and discussion, I don't think I could do any better than your argument.

Ultimately, though, I don't think it really matters that much--as we've all said, it's more profitable to look at examples of things individually. I just think we should chuck: the umbrella-concept that saying that "'being the author of an RPG-story' means the PC's can't be the main characters" means anything concrete by way of analysis since, in many real meaningful senses, it doesn't.

-Marco
* I have a post on this that, I hope, moves directly away from the TITBB conflict. I'll try to get it up tonight.

Quote from: Ron EdwardsHey Jaik,

Is any of the current discourse helpful to you?

Best,
Ron

Ron, sorry for the late reply.  

Umm, I pretty much dropped out of this thread about halfway down the first page.  I didn't start it to find an answer to a question of my own so much as to reply to Marco's (I think) request for amplification in another thread, but now I'm curious about the conscious or unconscious process of reaching a balance.

I've seen an awful lot of theory and a bunch of semantics.  I really don't think it's all that complicated.  

I started to restate my forst post and then scrapped it.

How about we all assume that TITBB is indeed, an impossibility?  Assume that the various passages generalized to "The GM authors the story and the players direct the main characters" which exist in many game texts describe a situation which does not, in fact, exist in any game.

Why would someone believe that they have achieved this state in their game?  Further questioning will usually reveal a compromise, a meeting in the middle.

In my experience, I gave little thought to the maintenace of this balance on my part.  Marco apparently consciously debates various courses of action, weighing each action against the maintenace of the balance.

I could see the probability of this balance being unconscious being in direct line with the stability of the gaming group.

Anyone have thoughts along these lines?