"Unconscious" accomodations for TITBB

[Ron Edwards]

Hey Jaik,

Is any of the current discourse helpful to you?

Best,
Ron

[contracycle]

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?

[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

[Marco]

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?

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

[contracycle]

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.

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.

[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.

[Jaik]

Hey 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?