Vision of Interaction and Vision of Independence examined

[Doctor Xero]

Here's the theory :

When two friends sit down at a chess board and decide to express their creativity and explore their cunning by playing a game of chess, each one of them is interacting with the notional structure of "chess".  They are engaging together in an act of vision of interaction through interacting with those rules.  (As Wittgenstein and others have pointed out, "chess" does not exist outside its structuration within a set of pre-existing rules.)

When two friends sit down at a chess board and decide to explore their cunning and express their creativity by improvising a new game using those wooden chess pieces, one with no direct link to any other game, both individually and corporately they are acting relatively independently of any pre-existing notional structure.  They are engaging together in an act of vision of independence of an a priori structure.  In terms of social contract and social commitment, they are relating interactively with each, and in terms of physical and tactile use of the chess pieces, they are relating physically interactively with the king and queen and knight et al., but in terms of the structure (or in terms of notional instrumentality if you prefer psychological language) they are relating relatively independently of a pre-existing structure, in this case the structure of chess.

In the same way, when I read a series of haikus and decide that I would like to write the American variant of a haiku -- three lines, first and third of exactly five syllables no more no less, middle line of seven syllables no more no less -- I pull out my pen and sit down and express my creativity in one of two probable ways.  If I write within those haiku restrictions, I am interacting with the structure of haiku within a vision of interaction, whether successfully or not.  If I decide to ignore those haiku rules and write free verse, I am writing independently of a pre-existing structuring in a basic vision of independence.  Of course, there is seldom pure independence of any structure -- I'm using language, I'm considering cadence and euphony among other things -- but in terms of my relationship with a pre-existing structure, I am relatively independent.

One could always insist that there is no such thing as pure independence of other structural notions, but that really only accomplishes a straw man argument.  Extremes are important only as tools to establish the boundaries or parameters of a spectrum, and both vision of interaction and vision of independence are the parameters of a spectrum.  No one can act within a symbol system such as language or mathematics or gaming completely independently of any other notions -- but there are degrees of interaction with those pre-existing notions and degrees of independence from those pre-existing notions.  Again, ignoring or overemphasizing this results only in straw man arguments.

Ferdinand Saussure noted that structure and variation from structure interrelate in language as one of the primary forces in the changing of language (e.g. from Old English to Middle English).  He noted that most speakers of a language defer overall to a known set of "official" rules (such as proper grammar) but that almost no one uses those rules as they are all the time.  Eventually, if commonly held, those changes become incorporated into the "official" rules.  The rules function as a grounding from which creative communication springs, not as a straitjacket nor as shackles.  The creative communication in turn eventually modifies those rules.

In the example of chess given above, both vision of interaction and a lowlevel vision of independence have resulted in a fine body of chess variants.  Are these variants chess?  Yes.  Are they the official or "center zero" form of chess?  No.  Does that make them any less legitimate?  No.  Does that make their players any more mature or more creative than those who play the standard form of chess?  No.

Now, in a game mastered RPG, when a troupe encounters a cottage in the middle of the woods, the players may have no idea whether that cottage was drawn on a G.M.'s map three days before campaign's start or definitively placed there in a module by the game system's creator or ad-libbed on the spot because the game master was bored or thought it would amuse her or his players.  However, whether or not that cottage pre-existed is not the relevant concern in the notion of visions of interaction and visions of independence.  The concern is whether the individual members of the troupe began the campaign and begin each game session with a sense that there is a set, determined, pre-existing stage as a grounding for their acts of cunning and expressions of creativity.  To return to the chess metaphor: to what degree does each player begin this game knowing that rooks move horizontally and vertically and bishops move diagonally, and to what degree does each player begin this game knowing that both friendly pawns and hostile pawns may manifest new functions at any given time if the troupe as a whole okays those new manifestations?

How much of the grounding can be thought about and dreamt about and played with in a player's mind before and between games (because said grounding is stable and set), and how much of the grounding will exist only during the gaming itself?  Again, this is a question of degrees, not an either/or binary.

A simple example for RPGs is genre structuring.

Many -- but not all! -- RPGs expect a high degree of interactive fidelity to the genre.  So each player in a fantasy game strictly based off The Professor's Lord of the Rings can assume that both he or she and the other players and the game master if there is one will anticipate encounters and tropes with a vision of interaction with that genre.  If a new player decides that he will run a superhero from the planet Krypton or that she will run a sharpshooting cowpoke with thick Texas drawl, in most games the other players will object -- that player has chosen to construct a player-character independently from the chosen genre rather than interactively within the chosen genre.  Similarly, many players in such a game would be annoyed with the game master if he or she suddenly faced the players with a squad of "Battlestar: Galactica" cylons.  Their frustration would not come from violation of social contract -- their frustration would come from violation of the social contract about degree of interaction within genre and degree of independence from genre!

On the other hand, I have seen groups have great fun with anything-goes no-holds-barred AD-&-D campaigns in which a Kzinti and a White Gold wielder and an anime' super-ninja and a Clint Eastwood homage work together in a rollicking campaign which might involve stopping Thulsa Doom one day and stealing the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West another day and assaulting the Deathstar a third.  This gaming group enjoys a far greater degree of vision of independence from genre structure.

Variations on a theme are only possible if there is a pre-existing stable theme off which one may vary -- a theme with which the creative individual might interact.  Hence the importance of vision of interaction for creativity.

Variations on a  theme are only possible if there may be variations from this pre-existing stable theme -- a level of independence from that theme so far as the creative individual is concerned.  Hence the importance of vision of independence for creativity.

In an RPG, just as in any group creative endeavor, things can go very wrong if different members have different visions of the degree of interaction with structure and degree of independence from structure, regardless of whether that structure is genre, theme, de facto or de jure rules, etc.  Recognition of vision of interaction approaches and vision of independence approaches to the various notional structures within RPGs can be both useful in a practical sense and fascinating in an intellectual sense.

Someone listed a number of fine scholars for this sort of concept, but I can not find that posting right now.  So I will list some scholars for those who are interested in such topics, and I apologize if I replicate some of her or his list.  These are just a few of  the scholars whose work deals in part with the degree of interaction with and degree of independence from notional structures (including language, culture, games, vows, sense of self, social identity, gender, race, ethicality, morality, meaningfulness, etc.) :

Ferdinand Saussure originated the twin fields of semiotics and semiology with his recognition of the division between language and the reality which language represents and which language is often mistaken for
Claude Levi-Strauss linked this with anthropological theories
Jacques Lacan linked this with psychological theories of ontology and cognitive social development
Ludwig Wittgenstein recognized the dependence of notional "things" (such as chess and society) upon pre-existing structure
John L. Austin and John R. Searle explored the different meanings inherent within sentences, how one recognizes said meanings (or fails to), and the performative sentence -- a sentence which is true only through the act of saying it, such as a vow
Erving Goffman explicated the degree to which people are judged more for the appearance of their behavior than for the actuality of their behavior
Judith Butler applied the ideas of the above scholars to social structures and the axes of social structures, such as the axis of gender, the axis of class, etc.
Michel Foucault detailed the influence of awareness of external power structures on the internal functionings or behavioral functionings of individuals
James J. Gibson recognize the biological basis for finding meaningfulness within one's environment, which he called affinity
David C. Rubin brings together the various cognitive theories on the importance of narrative structure to the sense of self (I can't off the top of my head recall the names of the theorists)

(EDIT: the other theorists are on http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10283&start=0)

Midterm season has begun at the university, so odds are that I will have far less free time for perusing The Forge and contributing to its various threads.  I have almost finished another game to submit to The Forge; I will be lucky if I have time for more than that and this particular thread here.

I will be focusing most of my VoIND and VoINT discussion in this thread only; let's use this thread to explore its relevance and applications and consider possible flaws and holes as well.  If you consider the VoIND and VoINT theoretical perspective merely a waste of bandwidth or despise the terminology, there's a fine thread on just those concerns at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10253 which you might enjoy participating in.  I apologize to the fine people contributing to that thread and its siblings that I no longer have the time to address their insights and defend my terminology, scholarship, and/or theory right now; however, I appreciate how their thoughts have kept me on my toes.

Good luck to all.  I look forward to reading insights on this thread.

Doctor Xero

Is this something I might post an article on?

[montag]

Ok, since this is not my area of expertise, I'm probably wrong and am misunderstanding your point. I suggest you consider the following merely as points where clarification might be necessary.

I get the impression you're conflation a bunch of notions which are actually independent from each other.*
- (1) One thing is the assignment of credibility, what is referred to as stances over here AFAIK. Giving the player editing power e.g. as far as the setting is concerned may or may not mean, that they have to stick to genre expectations (3) or that there has to be continuity (2).
It seems wholly irrelevant to me, whether the sum of expectations of other players come from previous agreement among players, or previous agreement to adhere to a published setting or to one, which another player has conceived.
- (2) Next you seem to refer to a notion of continuity in the setting, though this is again unrelated to the other stuff, since a GM could as easily choose to turn the whole world upside down at every session as a player could (1) and in both cases the changes can stay within a genre or go beyond (3).
- (3) Finally, fidelity to a certain genre is again entirely unrelated to the question of who is given authority to introduce new elements into the setting (1). Genres may or may not be have the continuity mentioned under (2).

So, from where I'm standing, it seems like you're trying to roll independent aspects (which may nonetheless correlate) into one big thing, mistaking correlation for causal connections.
Besides, the current usage seems at odds with the previous one you used here, in that it is more vague and at least I have more trouble discerning the two visions.

On second thought, maybe I'm approaching this the wrong way, by looking for a theory of play, when you actually want to create a somewhat psychological theory of the perception of play. To quote from JohnKim's essay "They are not goals or techniques, but  rather different understandings for what RPGs are in narrative  terms."
However, if that is the goal, I'd suggest abandoning the one-dimensional (bipolar) approach which IMHO is useless and working from various classifications of player types.

*Apologies to anyone else for misuse of Forge terminology, don't hesitate to correct me on that as well

[John Kim]

On second thought, maybe I'm approaching this the wrong way, by looking for a theory of play, when you actually want to create a somewhat psychological theory of the perception of play. To quote from JohnKim's essay "They are not goals or techniques, but  rather different understandings for what RPGs are in narrative  terms."   However, if that is the goal, I'd suggest abandoning the one-dimensional (bipolar) approach which IMHO is useless and working from various classifications of player types.  

First of all, I think you are right about this -- what he is talking about is relation of the RPG play to larger narrative structures: like genre, or background, or structure.  For how to proceed, I would actually suggest the reverse.  Rather than turning it into a more multi-dimensional analysis of players, we should narrow the scope to talk about only this single dimension of vision.  Xero has said (as was clear from previous threads) that he doesn't really have time to keep up with this -- so I think this should be about the issue he brought up.  

First, I would note that by favoring "VoINT", he is expressing dislike for freeform of the sort that he saw on online role-playing message boards.  Really, this is similar to many posters here, who (unsurprisingly in a game design forum) favor having solid rules which are obeyed rather than freeform.  A game like "My Life With Master" is very much interacting with the structure of the game and the structure of the genre within his definition.  

Personally, I hate the original terms, though.  I'd propose an alternate set of terms.  

Manipulation is working within a tight structure.  Pure manipulation would be only controlling the behavior of existing objects, or perhaps only rearranging a fixed set of story elements.  I think a good example of a manipulation-heavy game is an unplotted LARP (aka "freeform" in the Australian term).  As a LARP, the only allowed places are all defined, and all of the characters and props are similarly prepared.  Does this mean that nothing happens?  Not at all.  The characters will pursue their goals, ally, conflict with each other, or perhaps kill each other.  There is no GM in the tabletop sense, and no one has the power to create new characters or objects.  (Every character has a player; every object has a prop.)

Invention is working outside of structure -- the creation from nothing of new objects: characters,  locations, or items of various sorts.  An invention-heavy game would have little in the way of story, background, or rules defined at the start.  A good example might be starting a game of The Pool with no background written up and minimal character write-ups.  

All games have both invention and manipulation, but they vary in the levels of how much (although that can't really be quantified).  I think these new terms cut out the center of what Xero is talking about a little better -- but I'd be open to suggestions.

[Doctor Xero]

I'd suggest abandoning the one-dimensional (bipolar) approach

Extremes are important only as tools to establish the boundaries or parameters of a spectrum, and both vision of interaction and vision of independence are the parameters of a spectrum.  ---snip!-- Again, ignoring or overemphasizing this results only in straw man arguments.

As I've written repeatedly, Montag, VoINT and VoIND are the ends of a spectrum.  How a spectrum could be construed as bipolar is beyond me.

On second thought, maybe I'm approaching this the wrong way, by looking for a theory of play, when you actually want to create a somewhat psychological theory of the perception of play.

what he is talking about is relation of the RPG play to larger narrative structures: like genre, or background, or structure.

Exactly!

I'm sorry you hate my choice of terms.  I genuinely believe the confusion is the result of some failure of communication.  Perhaps I'm the only one approaching this with a combined sociolinguistic and cognitive psychological background (tho' I am far from an expert in those since I know them by way of my other studies!)?  I  don't know.  I'm looking at this primarily in terms of cognitive psychology and sociolinguistics in their dealings with how individuals interact with symbolic systems, such as language, culture -- or, in this case, a shared fantasy.  With VoINT and VoIND theory, I'm focusing specifically on the effect of perception and its anticipatory/predictive elements in the individual's interaction with a symbolic system.  How does stability in conceptual framework affect creativity?

If a cabin appears, and players use suspension of disbelief to think of it as having always existed there, they are engaging in an illusion of diachronic reality (to use a Forge term apropos sustained suspension of disbelief).  If a cabin appears, and players know they summoned it into existence, there is no such illusion.  How does this difference help and hinder creative expression and cunning utilization of the notional constructs of the symbol system through which the game is manifested?

I mislike the terms Manipulation and Invention because they seem to emphasize how[/b] the individual interacts with the notional structure or conceptual framework.  I am more interested in the degree[/b] to which the individual interacts with the notional structure -- and the degree to which the notional structure is seemingly pre-existing (i.e. diachronically stable) for the sake of such interaction! -- and how this range influences the individual's sense of stability within the game's symbol system, the individual's sense of anticipatory predictability within the game's symbol system, and the individual's ability to creatively reconstruct and reuse and reclaim the game's symbol system.  I suppose one might use the terms Intimate for Vision of Interaction and Distant for Vision of Independence, if one were determined to find different terminology.  

I started out this analysis to try to understand the appeal of GMless games and games in which players improvise the settings with frequency, and I've done that.  I'd now like to try playing such games.  The game system I'm working on while playtesting Mageling is more of a VoIND or player-improvisation game as my way of playing with the conceptual framework for such game types.

This is not a theory just about use of constructs in a symbol system -- specifically player use of constructs within a gaming system.

This is a theory about the interrelationship between player perception of stability of constructs in a symbol system and player sense of intimate interaction with those constructs (or independence from those constructs!) and how that interrelationship influences creativity, cleverness, suspension of disbelief, etc. -- how it influences all the thought experiments and notional play involving those constructs.

And, yes, it is an evolving theory.

University duty calls!

Doctor Xero

[montag]

I'd suggest abandoning the one-dimensional (bipolar) approach

Extremes are important only as tools to establish the boundaries or parameters of a spectrum, and both vision of interaction and vision of independence are the parameters of a spectrum.  ---snip!-- Again, ignoring or overemphasizing this results only in straw man arguments.

As I've written repeatedly, Montag, VoINT and VoIND are the ends of a spectrum.  How a spectrum could be construed as bipolar is beyond me.

Maybe it might help, if you elaborated on your usage of the term "spectrum" and I'll elaborate on my understanding.
Concerning my usage of the term bipolar, the misunderstanding is indeed my fault, as within psychology (my field;) dimensions where only one pole is defined like e.g. "intelligence" are usually called unipolar, whereas dimensions where both ends have meaning are called bipolar. I just checked the dictionary and it seems this is actually a somewhat eccentric usage, so I'm happy to take the blame.
FWIW I can't remember the last time I came across the word spectrum, so I looked it up. The dictionary states something along the lines of "A range of values of a quantity or set of related quantities.", which to me indicates (a) two endpoints and (b) intermediate steps which differ qualitatively from each other. As such, the whole thing should be discontinuous. However, you repeatedly spoke of a "degree", from which I inferred, that you're talking about a continuous variable.
Finally, your use of the term "parameter" is confusing to me, as to me a parameter is measureable factor or a variable within a system (usually a mathematical one in the second case). If you are merely talking about a "A distinguishing characteristic or feature.", then I'd suggest using these terms instead.
Either way, if you could provide some definitions on these terms, that might give each of us some more stuff to chew on. ;)

[Alan]

Invention within an RPG is not without it's rules, which must be interacted with.

[Jason Lee]

Hmmm...

I haven't had a chance to read all of the related threads, but I've got a quick question.

Are you basically saying that, in their purest forms, vision of interaction statements are entirely reasoned from existing statements (deduction/induction/abduction), and vision of independence statements are entirely created (additional data injected into the conversation independent of any statements already made)?

(Given that the purest cases are just theoretical constructs, and cannot actually existent.  Which, you don't seem to be in disagreement with.  Correct me if I'm wrong.)

[Gordon C. Landis]

Hi Doc Xero,

Good to see this thread - I think it makes the issues you are interested in more clear.  I think much discussion here at the Forge actually makes an end run around the issues you are pointing at - whether that's good or bad is probably a matter of opinion.  But for what it's worth, maybe I can express my understanding by working off a quote from your post above:

If a cabin appears, and players use suspension of disbelief to think of it as having always existed there, they are engaging in an illusion of diachronic reality (to use a Forge term apropos sustained suspension of disbelief). If a cabin appears, and players know they summoned it into existence, there is no such illusion.

Here's the thing  - since any "reality" about the imagined objects/sitiations/characters/etc. is always an illusion, having the players summon something into existence need not be any barrier at all to creating that illusion.  My experience is that where along your interaction->independence spectrum some set of play or incident in play lies has no particular influence upon the ability of my group to engage with the imagined material.  The things that cause the engagement to succede or fail are issues like consistency (with both previous play and the expectations of the group) and relevance (to what the group is interested in, either in particular regarding the play at hand or in general regarding play as a whole).  Sometimes these goals are well-served through the pre-creation of world elements by a GM, sometimes not - equally for independent, in-play creation.  To clarify - I understand "pre-creation" to be not  exactly what you are referring to as "interaction", but it is a frequently-occuring case of it.  "Frequently-occuring" both in the sense that this is a common way of playing, and that games with pre-creation frequently (but not of neccessity) end up being on the interaction end of your scale.  My applogies if I'm reading that wrong.

My sense of intimate engagement with in-game constructs, whether they are something I interact with (and thus incorporate into our play) or something I myself create (and thus incorporate in to our play), is derived from issues (e.g., consistency and relevance) with the constructs, not the "stability" of the constructs.  Now, I'll happily concede that for some folks (perceived, at least) pre-existence is a particularly important factor in terms of their sense of consistency, or that in some particular situation pre-existence is a great tool for acheiving relevance.  But the opposite can also be true - more often than has typically been recognized, I'd say.  For many reasons, pre-existence is often an almost sacred entity in RPG discussion, and while useful, we would (IMO) be well served by taking that sacredness away from it.  I think there are also issues with exactly what KINDS of things are seen as important to establish as pre-existing (e.g., a particular Humanity defintion is vital as a pre-existing concept within Sorcerer play, with details of the world less so), but that seems a somewhat different topic.

So - my purpose here is NOT to say the issues you are looking at are irrelevant, but rather to point out why the WAY you are approaching them might seem off-target some.  In particular, a Narrativist approach to play has at it's core a need for each player to independently create "meaning" through their character (meaning quoted as Address of Premise is the proper term), and yet totally relies upon all participants (players and any GM) to interact with what is provided (both at the start of play and as play continues) while doing so.  Thus, both "ends" of your spectrum are VITALLY important - so much so that it seems odd to imply that one must lessen when the other increases.

That said, when you speak of interacting with vs. independent of a particular, specific concept - genre-fidelity, in your e.g. - you make a lot of sense to me.  Of course, it seems to me that independent of one thing really just means interacting with a different thing, but if we're interested in the one thing rather than the different thing - knowing the extent to which a group is willing to focus their interactions via a (again, e.g.) particular set of genre conventions vs. how much they want to create "what they feel like" regardless of those conventions seems useful.

Not sure how well I understood what use you want to put this stuff to, but hopefully I added a little bit as to why the angle you're taking seems a odd to some folks here,

Gordon

[pete_darby]

DoctorXero:

Just quickly, before i risk missing vital calls...

As far as I can tell, the distinction arises due to treating the existing / agreed elements as a semiotic text with which the players are seen as either interacting with or acting independently to. I think in order to properly grok this, I'm going to have to find out what these guys say about creation of texts, as I'm still getting the impression that a great deal of their work that I've encountered before is concerned with the reading of texts, and the creation of intertexts to facilitate interaction with the text by a reader.

Basically, you're telling me what the blind men are saying about the elephant's trunk, when I've only heard them talk about the tail before ;)

Would a case study in looking at the structure of a particular game, and how it relates to VoInd and VoInt help? I think, specifically, Universalis would be a fine test case, since it lays bare the creation of the text for interaction explicitly at the outset, while explicitly allowing reference to a pre-written text (tenet: we will be using the published text of the Forgotten Realms campaign as canon for all world, NPC, etc information).

I think the previous assumption folk made about you priveliging VoInt over VoInd came from unrelated comments you made about your preferred play style and the bad experiences you've had with abuse of VoInd for dysfunctional play: also, to an extent, I was projecting my percieved prejudice of the post-modernist movement against the writer and towards the reader, which strikes me as particularly destructive of the creative efforts of role-players (amongst many other groups I indetify myself with). It seems I was taking various of my old philosophical sparring partners at their word, not the words of their supposed authorities.

It seems to me that RPG's can be seen as operating at the knife edge of interaction & independence, perhaps more than any other creative endaevour. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

[pete_darby]

From Gordon's post, I think it may be useful to think of the procedure of play as being the constant creation of the text, which the players are then, at each point, choosing VoInt or VoInd to add to either by re-incorporation or accretion of new text.

In my experience, which I recognize sounds quite different to DoctorXero's, whether the text has been created prior to play or during play is quite irrelevant for depth of immersion. I can see how it could be for some people... but I don't play with them. I'm not saying that my players prefer VoInd, but that in terms of the enjoyment, they don't care whether the text they're interacting with was laid down years ago or as it was presented to them.

But certainly, at the point of play, as the rubber meets the road, the choice is a pretty stark one between interaction with the text (with necessary caveats that any interaction must create previously non-existent interactions and intertext, otherwise it isn't interaction), or independent creation onto the text (again, with caveats that, to be meaningful, these additions must meaningfully interact in some way with the pre-existing text).

[clehrich]

I mislike the terms Manipulation and Invention because they seem to emphasize how[/b] the individual interacts with the notional structure or conceptual framework.  I am more interested in the degree[/b] to which the individual interacts with the notional structure -- and the degree to which the notional structure is seemingly pre-existing (i.e. diachronically stable) for the sake of such interaction! -- and how this range influences the individual's sense of stability within the game's symbol system, the individual's sense of anticipatory predictability within the game's symbol system, and the individual's ability to creatively reconstruct and reuse and reclaim the game's symbol system.

I think this is a false distinction; I like John's terms precisely because they're about how rather than how much.  You've brought up a lot of structural theorists, and it seems to me that what arises from that is that structure is always present, and that furthermore it cannot be avoided.  Thus the question is how one manipulates it, not whether or how much.  The natural continuation is to consider how manipulations are authorized or validated by other participants, which it seems to me gets at some of the issues of anticipatory prediction and so forth.  

One of the conclusions of the structural model, as I read it, is that an attempt to challenge the system by avoidance leads to radical disempowerment.  That is, if I attempt what you call Independence I get no result at all -- nobody takes as valid what I say or do.  Thus in order to have power and contribute to the game, I have to manipulate the structure.  But I can do so more or less radically, creatively, interestingly, and so forth.  Furthermore, every such manipulation necessarily makes some changes to the system, because it adds historical data that can be played on by other system-users in the future.  Thus significant change in the system happens slowly, by accretion, not by direct challenge.

In terms of RPG play, your example of the cabin discounts the fact that the system in question includes the possibility of creating cabins.  Thus when I create one, I manipulate system; I do not invent freely.  I realize that the issue of independence vs. interaction that you propose is not intended to be simply binary, but I think we are always sufficiently far from the independence pole as to make it not a useful concept.

Another way to look at this, if you really like these terms, would be in terms of the sign, taking every statement or action in an RPG as a sign.  Let me briefly summarize -- I know you like structuralists, but not everyone knows what you're talking about.

Percept:  Let's suppose (outside of a game) that I look at a physical object: my coffee cup here on my desk in front of me.  The image that forms in my head -- note, not the object itself -- is a percept.  It is entirely constrained by physiological considerations, it has little immediate meaning for me [=cup], and it has no meaning whatsoever for anyone else [they can't see my percepts].  It is fixed in time as well; the next time I look at the cup, my brain generates a new percept.

Concept: My mind reacts to the coffee cup and comes up with all sorts of associations.  I remember the time I almost lost the cup, I remember how much I like coffee, I realize that I'm low on milk, and so on.  These are concepts.  Concept is utterly free -- any association I may make is a concept.  They are entirely a matter of meaning, and cannot be firmly locked down to percepts; in other words, I could have the same concept prompted by almost any percept (I could look in the fridge and think, "Uh oh, low on milk").

So you can't work from percept to concept, or vice-versa.  Percept is constrained; concept is free.

Sign: This stands in the middle, and is how we make meaning happen.  A sign is constrained, because it's attached to the coffee cup, but is free, because it's anything that I can attach to the coffee cup.  If you think of a word, the word can mean a lot of things, but it can't mean absolutely anything: "cat" can mean the animal, or a class of animals, or Cat Stevens, or a Caterpillar earthmover, or whatever, but it can't (usually) mean a coffee cup.  If you think of a tool, it can be used for lots of things, but not for absolutely anything: I can use a screwdriver as a screwdriver, or a pry-bar, or a capacitor-shorter-outer, or even (badly) a hammer, but I can't use it as a refrigerator.

Okay, so it seems to me that what you're proposing here is that RPG's tend more or less toward percept or concept.  Some games aim to propose percepts, producing something like Illusionism or whatever, while others aim to propose concepts, producing freeform play.

I think what's always produced is signs.  The authority structure of the game (the group, the GM, the rules, the system, the social contract, etc.) will determine whether we are to treat signs as more or less like percepts or concepts, but fundamentally this is a question of authorization and validation and not the status of the proposition.  Furthermore, this is a question of sign-production in terms of rhetoric, not reality: if I "create" a cabin, and you think it's in my notes, you will not read this as free creation anyway.  Within the SIS, all that matters is that signs are proposed and validated in an approved manner.

Nevertheless, I do think there's some value in thinking about how games are structured to validate types of signs, and to interpret them on the basis of their percept- or concept-like values.  But I think the issue to be focused on, as Walt said some time back, is who gets to validate, how they get to do it, and what structures are in place to determine that validation.  We are always actually in a condition of system-manipulation; we may prefer to read that as freedom or constraint, for local reasons, but the question is then why make the choice the way one does.  This is why I dislike the "interaction" terminology: it's always interaction, no matter what, though we may at times pretend to ourselves that it isn't.  The relative degree is simply a question of how we locally think about the interaction in which we engage.

In the theory thread Xero has already referenced, I just (3/23/04) posted something about semiotic logic and how that makes some predictions about GM narrative power and its relation to Illusionism and Immersion.  This seems to me a more profitable direction for analysis.

Chris Lehrich

[Gordon C. Landis]

First off - let me thank Doc Xero, Chris Lehrich and probably others I'm forgetting for "explaining" so much about where their ideas are coming from and listing various references.  I appreciate it.

Pete: My experience with players matches yours, for the most part - though I have seen folks who were EXTREMELY attached to following what was "in the book," in the book meaning the setting as opposed to rules in this case.  I generaly don't play with folks like that anymore.

Chris:  That makes sense to me.  What little depth there is to my philosophical understanding in this area lies with what are often labeled american pragmatists - Richard Rorty in particular - so that's probably no surprise.  Using your terms (probably inappropriately), Doc Xero's independence and interaction seem to me to be attempts to see a percept (what is created by the pure existence of a text as text) as a sign, and neither my experience nor my (limited) theoretical grounding inclines me to see that as useful - though particular instances may provide exceptions.

Gordon