Narrowing the Definition of Social Contract

[Jason Lee]

This is a split from The Whole Model & Venn Diagrams.  Hell, I'm just going to quote what I said in that thread.

I see at least two distinct layers to what we've been referring to as Social Contract. One layer is Social Contract, which is within the layer of Social Setting. I think there is a lot above Social Setting, but I don't think it's germane to this discussion. The term Social Contract implies to me that originally the concept was more narrow (more what I'm thinking), but it seems to have mutated beyond control into 'everything larger than Exploration' - from credibility to pizza.

Social Setting is the social makeup, everything outside the game. Like who wants to date who, who's whining about work, etc.

Social Contract is the mutual agreement that defines the boundaries for the activity. The laws of the Social Setting. Though Bob hitting on Sally is part of the Social Setting, the Social Contract may be that Bob hitting on Sally is acceptable/inacceptable during game time.

The key difference between the two is that Creative Agenda influences Social Contract, because it's part of what structures the play expectations. The Social Contract is necessarily part of roleplaying, and the Social Setting is independent of the actual activity other than being the medium in which the activity occurs.

[jeffd]

Don't know how germaine this is, or if it's just stating the obvious, but it seems that Social Contract implies an agreement that governs, guides, and constrains the actions of people participating in an activity.  Social setting is the context in which those actions take place.

"Since we game at Mark's he doesn't have to pay for pizza" is Social Contract.

"Mark has the hots for Emily" is the Social Setting.

Is it useful to draw a distinction between these two things?

[Caldis]

"Since we game at Mark's he doesn't have to pay for pizza" is Social Contract.

"Mark has the hots for Emily" is the Social Setting.

Is it useful to draw a distinction between these two things?

Those two, no. But I think both of your examples are social setting questions.  Social contract in the distinction Cruciel has made would be things that affect actual game play.  Things like the tone of the game, (serious or light), what stances are acceptable for the players, (actor, director, pawn) and whether other players can make suggestions for character actions.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

If you guys don't think that "who has to pay for pizza" or "who has the hots for whom" don't affect game-play, then I think you're not paying attention. In my view, both of these seriously affect game-play.

Best,
Ron

[jeffd]

If you guys don't think that "who has to pay for pizza" or "who has the hots for whom" don't affect game-play, then I think you're not paying attention. In my view, both of these seriously affect game-play.

I agree that both are going to affect game play.  

I guess what I'm getting at is that while there's a difference - is it even really worth talking about them like they're two different things (setting vs. contract).  Does that give the theory any more "power" for lack of a better word, or is it just splitting hairs?

JD

[Blankshield]

I think the distinction between social contract and social setting is probably a useful one, but not divided on the line of 'affects play'.  As Ron rightly points out, the examples given certainly will affect play.

Were I to draw the difference I would set it at "are we doing anything about it?"

Social Contract is the things the group of gamers agree to, either explicitly or via social pecking order or vulcan mindmeld.  Things like "Mark doesn't pay for pizza because it's his house" are SC.  It's a choice the group makes.

Social Setting is the things that exist regardless.  "Mark has the hots for Emily" is SS.  He's got the hots, there's nothing anyone can really do about it, and it's going to affect play.

Social setting will certainly affect social contract, and vice versa.  "Doug hates D&D" is social setting.  "We won't play D&D" is social contract that comes out of that setting, as is "We'll play D&D every other week" or "We'll play D&D anyway."  

I think it's a useful distinction to make, because recognizing the difference lets people deal with it more clearly.  Acknowledging the things that aren't going to change lets you move past them to "what are we going to do about it?"  

Admittedly, recognizing the things that aren't going to change isn't always so clear cut as I make it out to be...

I'll also admit that while I think the distinction is useful for game design and play, I'm not sure that it's a significant difference in terms of how GNS classes things.  From a GNS perspective, it doesn't really matter where the social factors come from, just how they interact with the rest of the model.  I'm not sure there's a difference from that POV.

James

[clehrich]

I think these two examples nicely demonstrate what, to me, constitutes the real basis of social contract.  That is: social choice with respect to inclusion and exclusion.

What I mean is this.  The group must have some criteria by which they decide what, of the many things that happen during a gaming session (broadly defined), "counts" as part of the "real game."  Some of this is relatively overt, some is subtle and even unconscious.  But the issue at stake is what is and is not relevant to the game.

Now I think these two examples nicely bring up some of the subtler aspects of this issue of inclusion.  To wit:

Mark doesn't pay for pizza because it's his house.
In most groups I've dealt with that have this sort of rule in place, it is taken for granted that such a rule is (1) explicit, and (2) not relevant to the "real game."  At the same time, of course, it's extremely relevant at a deeper level.  People have to eat, and they have to have a place to play, and both of these things are indeed part of the game.  But if instead you have a group that always plays at a public space, and never ever eats during the game, the issues of "where to play" and "what to eat" are excluded.  I think there is an interesting tendency to treat this sort of issue as "not really the game," which I would dispute.

Mark has the hots for Emily
A fascinating example, because in a lot of groups I've played with, this is not only usually unstated, but is in fact considered actively irrelevant.  For example, if Mark interacts with Emily's character differently because he has the hots for her, a lot of players will see this as a violation of the social contract.  But (agreeing with Ron), why should it be?  Of course it's relevant.  But what you have here is a way of choosing which things "count" and which don't.

I see this as all part of the same issue with things like immersion, metagame (whether it's good or not), speaking habits (using "I" to refer to a character), and so forth.  All of these amount to methods of determining what "counts" and what, if brought into the game, is a violation.

As an example from my discipline, History of Religions, consider a wedding.  A real one, such as one you've attended.  If during the ceremony a child suddenly announces in a thundering voice, "Mommy, I have to pee," the audience quite automatically decides that this doesn't "count" -- it has no bearing on the wedding in progress.  And yet, if the mother suddenly announces in a thundering voice, "My child has to pee," that's considered a real violation, a transgression against the wedding.  How did this get decided?  This is what I mean by strategies of choice, of inclusion and exclusion.

I do not think that a binary distinction (Contract vs. Setting) will help much here; I think that will tend to suggest that these categories are neat and can be defined clearly.  I doubt this.  I suspect that the only effective way to talk about this is in terms of strategies of inclusion and exclusion.

But I should mention that I also find the Big Model problematic for exactly the same reason: most particularly, I think the idea that Social Contract is a thing with clear boundaries is useless, because insofar as you can define it that way, it includes absolutely everything.

[Jason Lee]

Wow.  Lots of interesting stuff.  I just want to make a couple of clarifications about where I was coming from.

*****

Those two, no. But I think both of your examples are social setting questions. Social contract in the distinction Cruciel has made would be things that affect actual game play. Things like the tone of the game, (serious or light), what stances are acceptable for the players, (actor, director, pawn) and whether other players can make suggestions for character actions.

I think Caldis has got it.  However, I could see a case made for "Since we game at Mark's he doesn't have to pay for pizza" being Social Contract as well.  It sort of depends on whether the eating of pizza it part of play expectations (Social Contract / Inclusion) or part of the expectations of hanging out (Social Setting / Exclusion).

(I'd like to add comfort level to the list of Social Contract examples.)

*****

I fully agree that elements of Social Setting affect the game in big ways.

The distinction I was drawing, and the relevance of the distinction to GNS, is that play expectations do not affect Social Setting, but they do effect Social Contract.  In the other thread I referred to 'Creative Agenda as a motivation', and that's what I mean by play expectations.  You could also think of play expectations as Creative Agenda precursors or the part of Creative Agenda that extend into the Social Contract layer.

To sum up:   Social Setting + Play Expectations = Social Contract

[Jason Lee]

Another note on relevance.

Though this is largely about the relationship between Social Contact and Creative Agenda, this is also about the relationship between Social Contract and Exploration.  If we say that Exploration is an expression of Social Contract, I think it is easier to see why if we look at it from this perspective.

Play expectations are a building block of Social Contract; Social Contract lays down some of the fundamental rules about how Proposals are Validated and Integrated into the shared imaginary space; a shared imaginary space is group Exploration.

[Mike Holmes]

Just to chime in, I think this is one case where the original term should not have it's meaning made into jargon for the theory. That is, Social Contract was first coined by Hobbes, IIRC, or somebody thereabouts. It has a very effective meaning that we use directly in talking about RPGs.

So, if you want to split it up, or talk about special sorts as they pertain to RPGs, then I'd suggest making compound terms up. Extra-RPG Social Contract, and Intra-RPG Social Contract? Maybe not, but you get the idea.

Mike

[Caldis]

I messed up earlier when I mentioned game play by adding the word play.  Of course who pays for pizza and who has the hots for who will affect game play but in a totally different way than deciding that we want to play a sci-fi horror game rather than fantasy.  One item is about the people playing and the other is about the game itself.

Why do I think it's a worthwhile distinction?  Because the discussions around here focus on elements that can affect the social contract.  GNS, System Does Matter, Illusionims, are all useful tools when discussing the social contract but for the social setting they are useless.  It doesnt matter if you are playing Heroquest or D&D if the problems in your game start with Bill being a jerk and not chipping in for pizza.

[Wormwood]

Mike,

I agree with you, and in doing so also disagree.

The term Social Contract should not be turned into a jargon for the sake of clarifying the theory. I also think the point of this discussion is to remove the jargon that has been put into the term.

A social contract is a set of implicit and explicit agreements between society members (in this case the play members). The idea being that they are all benefited by adherence to these agreements. Violations essentially expel the offender from the society, where they lose the advantages of the contract.

Much important social content and action occurs as part of the contract, but the assumption that if it is social it is part of the social contract is false. There will always be activity which lies outside the bounds currently considered by the contract. There will also be considerable neutral ground where social content is ignored by the contract.

In practice on the forge, content is considered in the social contract if it is possible for it to be in a social contract (this approach includes all observable social behavior, by definition). This is not enough. An agreement will only exist if: 1) the concern is sufficiently important, 2) there exisits a mutually beneficial agreement to make, and 3) the players have exerted the social effort to develop such an agreement. Anything which doesn't meet all three of these doesn't make it into a social contract. It remains part of the social setting, and explicitly remains something which can influence play, but outside of the contract.

I hope that helps,

   -Mendel S.

[Jason Lee]

Mendel,

Wow.  You read my mind.  Then you worded it better.  Then you said a bunch of other cool stuff.  Impressive.

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm. I must be dense. What are you disagreeing with? I agree completely with what you said, Mendel.

BTW, good to see you back posting.

Mike

[Emily Care]

"Contract of play" has always seemed more apt to me.  It's a social agreement of course, but has to do specifically with what's agreed on regarding play.  This may include metagame stuff like "turn the ringer off the phone while we're playing", but it implies the restriction to what actually affects play.

And, I agree, it's good to hear from you again, Mendel.

--Emily