Illusionist Techniques

[Silmenume]

Hey M. J. and Marco,

I apologize for the tardiness of this reply, but I seem to have hit a brick wall, endurance wise, with reference to posting.

I had started a reply several times, but I finally discovered that a major stumbling block I was experiencing lie in that we were talking past each other.  Let me start by defining my thoughts so we at least have a common reference.

The Shared Imaginary Space is the functional "reality" of the game.  Cause and Effect are always in operation unless specifically stated to the contrary.  Even when C&E are allowed to be violated, there is almost always a systematized governing limit to how often that can happen, e.g., coins.  It would be impossible to have a functioning or effectively realized Creative Agenda without Cause and Effect.  Without a solid Cause and Effect process you could have Victory before Challenge, Theme before Premise, The Dream before player action – Characters could die before they were born, sword blows could kill before they were swung - time would have no meaning.  The laws of physics in a fictional setting may be different from out own, but C&E cannot be absent.  WE as human beings cannot function without solid C&E.

Until "something" is validated into or that "something" has an effect upon something within the SIS then that "something," for all intents and purposes, does not exist.  IOW if "something" neither presents direct evidence of its existence (it is placed into the SIS by overt player action) to the players, nor presents indirect evidence of it existence within the SIS to the players – then as far as the players are concerned it does not (yet) exist.  This is the cornerstone to my argument and I will spend a little more time on this idea.

Imagine all as yet unrealized elements of Exploration as residing in Schrödinger's box.  Until any scintilla of information or effect is transmitted past the confines of the box to the outside world (the observer – in this case this would be the player who is either directly communicated to or the player who is picking up information from the information that has been entered into the SIS) then absolutely nothing can be said about what's inside the box (that which has not yet been realized/come to pass).  

Let us continue with this analogy and assume that we as the DM have placed a magnet inside the box.  The players have no knowledge of what the DM has placed in there, but now certain things are starting to happen.  A compass placed near the box turns as if a magnetic field was emanating from within the box.  Iron filings move and cling to the box as well.  How does this relate to the topic at hand?

Regarding the SIS, when the players do not have direct knowledge of something, either due to direct communication to the players (DM to player) or via the introduction of that fact into the SIS (DM to Player via Character) then there are four possible cases presuming that the box is opened at some point – [list=1][*]There is a magnet in the box (the DM placed it there – though the players do not know that fact) and its effects are demonstrated (by the DM) outside the box.  In this example we say suppose that a compass is near the box and reacts by changing its direction or that iron filings are near and move and cling to the outside of the box – IOW an unknown object is having a direct and knowable/observable effect upon the SIS.  While the players have no direct knowledge of the magnet they may abduce that there is something in the box, they may also abduce that that something is the cause of the demonstrated magnetic field and they may even abduce that that something could be a magnet – depending, say, on the data the iron filings yielded.  Cause and Effect are conserved which allows for the players to make a reasonable abduction (case – there is a magnet that the players haven't found yet) which can then be further tested – by projecting certain results when certain actions are tried and tested – deduction.  Upon opening the box the players see the magnet and their abductions are proven correct.  No Illusionist Techniques.[*]There is no magnet within the box (the DM specifically did not place one into the box) and no effects are demonstrated outside the box.  The players open the box and find no magnet within which supports the lack of demonstrated (by the DM) evidence of any magnetic effect.  C&E are conserved.  No Illusionist Techniques.[*]There is a magnet in the box (the DM placed it there) but its effects are not demonstrated (by the DM) outside the box (no effects are demonstrated upon the SIS by the DM).  The players open the box and see the magnet within but were utterly unaware of any demonstrated evidence of its existence prior to its revelation.  This would be equivalent to M.J.'s example of the anti-terrorist team employing Geiger counters and not finding any traces of the nuclear device.  Here we have C&E breaking.  This is GM employment Force.  Here is where we have an example of Illusionist Techniques.[*]There is no magnet within the box (the DM specifically did not place one into the box) but magnetic effects are demonstrated (by the GM) outside the box (effects are demonstrated upon the SIS by the DM).  The players open the box and find no magnet or any means of creating a magnetic field that was demonstrated (by the DM) outside the box (an effect demonstrated within the SIS).  This could be seen in the example given by Marco whereby the DM will always change the position of the bomb based upon the player abductions.  Again we have C&E breaking.  Again we have GM employment of Force.[/list:o]How does this relate to illusionist techniques and roleplay?

If there is no evidence (direct or indirect) to the existence of something to the players, (cases 1 and 2) then there can be no illusionist techniques under these circumstances.  There is no truth that is being obscured.  If there is false evidence (either a false positive or a false negative – cases 3 and 4) then such evidence are examples of GM Force which match both examples of Illusionist Techniques given.  IOW Illusionist Techniques are really a type of Force.

GM intentions cannot be invoked when defining the term Illusionist Technique. (Much in the same way that CA cannot be defined by player intentions or motives, but rather by player actualizations)  It is impossible for the players or anyone to know the GM's intentions; all that is available to the players and/or those trying to diagnose is that which has been realized/actualized (direct or indirect evidence demonstrated to the players).

It is this thought process that led me to conclude that Illusionist Techniques is merely a type of Force.  IOW as long as there is evidence already in existence to alter then there can be no illusion, conversely if there is evidence that is being altered then that is Force.

I hope that I have made my assumptions clear enough that they can be addressed without confusion.

[M. J. Young]

Jay, it seems to me that you're talking about "no myth" play: nothing that has not yet entered the shared imagined space in a way known to the players is in any way part of it.

I agree that this is a legitimate way to play; but I also maintain that it is not the only way to play.

If, for example, we agree that you're going to run Keep on the Borderland, we have all agreed, including you, that the contents of that module are definitive of the shared imagined space in terms of people, places, encounters, and other aspects covered thereby. None of us know what is contained in that book except you; but we've agreed that it's part of the shared imagined space outside our knowledge.

It is now a functional part of the social contract that you, as referee, are obliged to follow that module as accurately as you are able, and we are obliged to accept your statement concerning what the module says is the reality. Were you to decide to do something different, it would be a breach of that social contract.

I rarely play from modules; I usually design my own. However, my players expect to a significant degree that I have designed things, and am following my design. I could make it all up on the spot (and have done so); but it is more likely that I have some notes that contain what I believe is in the shared imagined space.

This gets tricky. My players don't know what's in my notes. However, they are expecting that I'm going to run the game according to whatever is there. That means that they believe there are "real" things in the shared imagined space that exist outside their knowledge, and that have not impacted them in any way at this point.

If we look at the moving clue, we have an excellent example of the problem with your cause and effect analysis.

The way to write a mystery as a book, I am persuaded, is to begin by working out in your own mind who killed whom, how, when, where, and why, and then working backwards to figure out what had to happen for them to have done that, and what clues must exist because of it. By sheer cause and effect, if you use that approach, the clues are fixed. If only one person saw the master leave the house at three o'clock, that person saw it because that person was in the right place at the right time.

That means in the nature of the beast, the mystery assumes that certain events happened in a very specific way, but that those events are unknown to the players. The entire point of the adventure is to work backwards to determine what happened in the shared imagined space before they began their investigation--there are real events that have had an impact on the present, even though they weren't played. We've established 1) that one and only one member of the household saw the master leave and 2) that the players must have that information in order to solve the mystery and 3) we don't want to tell them that this is the vital clue, we just want to quietly make certain they get it.

All of the players' assumptions about this world say that the past is fixed. Any suggestion that the referee is still writing the past to fit what happens in the present would violate cause and effect egregiously. Yet the past is not fixed; we do not know who saw the master leave until the players ask the right questions. Then suddenly it becomes the case that this particular person gives that information, and is the only one who knows it.

From the perspective of the players, it would still seem that this must have been in the notes. That is, they would assume that somewhere it was written "the maid saw the master leave the house at three o'clock", and that they got lucky and asked her this. To them, the past history of the shared imagined space is fixed. However, what the notes say is that the history is not fixed, but is to be formed in response to player choices in order to facilitate the solving of the mystery. The players think they got the information because they asked the maid, when in fact it was inevitable that they would get that information, and the maid was the one who knew it because she was the one they asked.

How is this force? The referee did not at any time control what the player characters did--the players were free to do whatever they wished. The referee did not at any time cause the actions of the players to be ineffective--quite the contrary, the referee caused the actions to be more effective. Yet at the same time, the referee took advantage of his credibility to manipulate the players' perceptions of the in-game reality. They believed that the maid having the clue was written in the referee's notes, because that's how these things are done. They had agreed that whatever was written in the referee's notes (or fixed in his mind) was already part of the in-game reality outside their knowledge. They are fooled into thinking that this is exactly as it was planned.

Years ago we invited my parents to dinner. My wife made a crockpot full of meatballs. When my father spooned them onto a roll, he commented that it was very clever of her to have made small meatballs that wouldn't fall off the roll so easily. She confessed that she had made large meatballs, and for some reason she had not yet fathomed they had all broken apart while cooking. He told her she should never say that; she should have said, "I'm glad you like them", and taken full credit for the compliment despite the fact that it was a mistake.

Illusionist techniques are like that: as referee I pretend that this is exactly as I'd always planned it to happen, and that you walked into it perfectly. You're deceived. I had no such plan. I'm just good enough that I can create the illusion that I did.

Does that help?

--M. J. Young

[ErrathofKosh]

Imagine all as yet unrealized elements of Exploration as residing in Schrödinger's box. Until any scintilla of information or effect is transmitted past the confines of the box to the outside world (the observer – in this case this would be the player who is either directly communicated to or the player who is picking up information from the information that has been entered into the SIS) then absolutely nothing can be said about what's inside the box (that which has not yet been realized/come to pass).

Illusionist techniques are like that: as referee I pretend that this is exactly as I'd always planned it to happen, and that you walked into it perfectly. You're deceived. I had no such plan. I'm just good enough that I can create the illusion that I did.

Does that help?

--M. J. Young

Jay,
Opening Schrodinger's box is not about discovering the hidden cause or non-cause (the missing magnet) of an observable effect.  It's the idea that opening the box is the cause and the cat dying/living is the effect.   This is similar to what MJ is talking about, but it isn't 100% analoguos.

Heisenberg argued that things like electron orbits don't exist until we observe them.  In MJ's example, this is like the PCs observing that the maid has the clue.  Up until that point, her status as clue-holder was ambiguous.  By asking her about the clue, the PC's determined that she would have it.

Other than that I would say that you both have posted legitimate ways to play.  I just wanted to add some clarity...

Cheers
Jonathan

[Marco]

Jay,

I find myself in agreement with MJ. I think that data that is not in the SiS still "exists" in a sense from some perspectives (i.e. if it's in the GM's head that there is a magnet in the box then it is reasonable to say it "exists" even though the players haven't discovered it and the magnet isn't in the SiS).

It's also reasonable to say it doesn't exist--both are valid perspectives--but what's useful is to find out which one gets you further. And that, IMO, depends on where you want to go.

-Marco