Retcon: Threat or Menace?

[TonyLB]

That's consequences.  That's you saying "The universe was destroyed and it has to stay destroyed."

[Sindyr]

That's consequences.  That's you saying "The universe was destroyed and it has to stay destroyed."

No, I am not.

I am saying"The universe was destroyed and it has to stay destroyed or you will be committing a retcon."

[Sydney Freedberg]

So your objection is to "committing a retcon," no more and no less? I can see why in other genres this might be a sticking point, but this is the comics, for cryin' out loud: retroactive continuity is all over the place.

[TonyLB]

No, I am not.

I am saying"The universe was destroyed and it has to stay destroyed or you will be committing a retcon."

But ... that's just not true.  Like I said, if I destroy the universe, then even if it doesn't stick (the universe comes back), it still happened in the story.  I can have the universe not stay destroyed, without saying "It never was destroyed in the first place," just as I can have somebody come back from the dead without saying "They never were killed."

[TonyLB]

Just in case people were wondering where this big new RetCon thread came from, I just split it off of Bodiless, persona-less character.  This new shoot is fascinating enough in itself that it was unfair to leave it grafted to the trunk of the previous conversation.  I usually split a bit quicker, but this struck me as a tangent at first, and I thought it would eventually return, rather than pick up steam on its own.  My bad!

[Valamir]

This is incorrect.  At least in one way: If winning a conflict is to have meaning, it must create at least in the moment a truth.  The truth in the moment MUST extend forward OR if it doesn't then you have a game that permits retconning.

I spent many long and tedious posts making exactly this argument.  This argument is pretty much the core of Universalis...a game that in many ways is very similar to Capes, but in this crucial way it is not.  All of Universalis is predicated on the idea that the "truth in the moment must extend forward to have meaning".  That's why Universalis play establishes Facts, and gives players a mechanical advantage when defending those Facts in the future.

But thing is, I've since come to realize, Capes doesn't work that way.  You've correctly recognized that Capes doesn't have a mechanic that establishes "truth extending forward".  Your mistake however (as mine was) is in assuming it needs one.

Sorry, no.  Nothing you have said in this reply I feel contradicts the irrefutable logic:
The truth in the moment MUST extend forward OR if it doesn't then you have a game that permits retconning.

Then you need to spend more time thinking and less time posting.  I made it excruciatingly clear.

It doesn't matter if the game permits retconning.  If the people at the table all think retconning sucks...then it isn't going to happen.  Because the first person who does it will lose the appreciation of his play and will thus suffer a drop in his ability to earn resources from the other players.  Ergo...he simply won't do it.  Greed and the desire to maximize his chance of winning will prevent him from taking a course of action that none of the other players would find fun.  Stamp that on your head in big letters.

Now...if many of the other players DO find it fun...and its just you who don't like it...well...sucks to be you then.  You don't get to have your preferences of what you think is meaningful and good be the standard by which all meaning and goodness is measured.  If everyone else LOVES the retconning and you hate it, Capes has a real clear message for you...tough. 

See alot of these threads don't seem to be about how you Sindyr will play with other players.  They seem to be about how you Sindyr can impose your will on what you concider fun, or what you think should be off limits on other players who may not feel the same way.  Capes doesn't give a rip about crap like that. 

If your collective group doesn't appreciate something, then the forces of Greed and Ambition will prevent people from going there.  But if your collective group DOES appreciate something...and its just you who don't...then you lose.  Too bad, so sad, get over it or play something else.........OR......Learn to be such a Masterful Capes player that you can drill all the other players into the ground and make them regret the time they didn't do things your way.

Is that more clear?

Note that I will not accept the same kind of answer you gave above, because I've twice now blown your irrefutable truth out of the water if you just take the time to actually absorb and ponder what was said.

[Sydney Freedberg]

To expand on Ralph's point:

Traditional RPGs place a great deal of discretionary power in the hands of the GM. Most importantly, this power operates without resource constraints, in that the GM does not have to "spend" anything to make his (more rarely her) judgments stick: Therefore imposing a GM judgment has zero cost (in game-mechanical terms; quite possibly not in social terms) that impedes the GM's ability to impose additional judgments in future. Further, this power operates without a resource economy, so that the GM's use of power in one instance does not transfer power to other people to use in other instances, so the (im)balance of power remains static. Given that imposing judgment requires "zero cost, zero change," it is relatively easy for the single person in the GM role to impose and enforce certain kinds of constraints on the story. E.g., "no retcons ever" or "sure, whatever, let's retcon, no biggie."

Less obviously, both traditional strong-single-GM RPGs and freeform "commie" roleplaying without a GM rely fairly heavily on the participants' judgment of "what should happen" according to some standard of realism, logic, fidelity to the source material, proper story arc, whatever. Again, this operates without resource constraints and without a resource economy, so once an individual has convinced the group as a whole to make a decision, there is "zero cost, zero change" in terms of resources and balance of power (respectively) that might reduce that individual's ability to do the same thing again and again. Therefore, as a result, these groups are relatively vulnerable to domination by a single strong personality, often but by no means always the "GM" -- a person possessing what Sindyr calls "popularity" --  who can impose his (rarely her) standards on the ground. They also vulnerable to being constrained by the forceful objections of an individual "spoiler," who lacks the charisma and/or force of argument ("popularity") to bring the group along to his (rarely her) vision, but who is sufficiently persistent in making objections (usually in the guise of reasoned argument, but generally mere assertion, ad hominem, and passive-aggressive "if you disagree with me you're a meanie" gambits) that the rest of the group concedes the point from sheer exhaustion, just to keep play going, and stays away from doing whatever the spoiler objects too.

Note that in either case, the GM or non-GM dominant player is almost certainly expressing his (rarely her) arguments as "objective" (or "logical," "fair," etc.). This may even be true. This is also beside the point. Because the game-world is not real, it itself is not "objective," "logical," or "fair" in any way: It is the consensus product of the participants' imaginations, mediated and integrated by their discussions ("shared imaginary space"), and therefore meets the definition of "subjective" about as perfectly as is possible. Whether the dominant participant's arguments are "objective" or not in their content, the process by which he gets the rest of the players (and possibly a weak GM) to accept them is highly subjective, i.e. discussion.

In fact, the only "objective" element of a roleplaying game -- that is, the only element that exists at least potentially outside the participants' own minds -- is the text of the rules, and (at a stretch) the formal procedures ("game mechanics") that are spelled out in those rules. In most RPGs, however, the rules-text quite explicitly defers to the subject judgment of the participants -- usually the GM, but often the group as a whole -- in saying something to the effect that the rules should be overlooked when they give a patently illogical result (as decided by the subjective consensus of the players), or when the process of using the procedures in the rules is too cumbersome, or when the outcome is not fun/dramatic/fair/realistic/whatever (again, according to the players' subjective judgment). Most "indie" games, by contrast, are fairly strict in saying their procedures are actually to be followed, and Forge discussions often emphasize that players should "play it as written" and, rather than override the rules as soon as a problematic result arises, adhere to the rules regardless and trust that that non-obvious emergent effects intended by the designer, which they may not perceive at this moment of discomfort, will in the long run provide far greater satisfaction. Capes is a particularly strong example of this trend.

As a result, Capes, for all its imperfections, is structurally highly resistant to both forms of the "single dominant participant" problem. This resistance has very little to do with "GM or no GM?" It has everything to do with the resource economy. Any individual, no matter how forcefully charismatic ("popular") or persistently obstreperous ("spoiler"), cannot obtain his (rarely her) desired results at "zero cost, zero change" merely by verbal argument. Any such verbal effort can be blocked by game-mechanics (assuming the rules are followed), simply by having another player put down an appropriately worded conflict (usually in this case, a preventive conflict) and engaging the conflict resolution system. At this point (assuming some minimal courtesy prevails), the popular/spoiler individual must expend game-mechanical resources to impose his will -- it is no longer "zero cost" -- and his expenditure of resources, even if successful, will end up giving more resources to the other players to constrain him later -- it is no longer "zero change" in terms of the balance of power. If the popular/spoiler player persists in this approach regardless, each subsequent attempt to impose his will becomes more difficult -- because the balance of power keeps shifting against him -- and therefore more costly -- making his expenditure of resources ever-greater for the same results -- until he loses all ability to impact the game, or changes his approach.

Conversely, a player who is neither "popular" nor a "spoiler," but who successfully understands or intuits what the other players find exciting and engaging, will tend to come out of conflicts with more resources gained than expended. This reward system gives this player more power to shape the story, and if s/he continues to do so in a way that is engaging and exciting for the other players, s/he will continue to get more resources, in a virtuous cycle.

Given these positive and negative feedback loops, if a given group of players has a strong shared desire for strict continuity, the emergent dynamic will strongly militate against "retcons," without any need for further rules. (Likewise if the players prefer "no sex scenes" or "no graphic violence"). But if only one player has a strong desire for strict continuity (or whatever), and the other players are not particularly interested one way or another, that single participant has relatively little ability to impose his (rarely her) desires on the group -- relative, that is, to a traditional RPG without a resource economy.

I strongly suspect Sindyr is personally used to play being either dominated or disrupted by "popular" and "spoiler" players. I would like to reassure him that both my own experiences playing Capes, and the many experiences of others I have read in Actual Play threads, show such problems are much rarer in Capes than in more traditional, less structured RPGs.