Confused between N & S

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Whew! Three meaty topics all at once. Let's see.

STANCES
I don't think you're saying nonsense. I do think, though, that as soon as the watching person opens his or her mouth to convey that meaning to everyone else - and especially when they do so in reference to what the "active" player is about to do or has done - then they have entered Author stance, or co-Author, if you like.

ROLE-PLAYING (NOT GAMES)
Clinton's right, I concede that strong, even defining similarities exist among (say) therapeutic role-playing and some forms of Sim. However, I think that any categorization I've come up with (or modified from others), like GNS, or how Currency relates to GNS, etc, is predicated on the role-playing being a group leisure activity - thus I don't expect any of my theorizing to apply substantively to the other forms of role-playing.

INSTANCES
Unless I'm terribly wrong somehow, I'm pretty sure that Mike, you, and I have all reached at least a tolerable consensus on this one.

Best,
Ron

edited to correct a mis-attribution

[Mike Holmes]

However, in audience stance, as I've defined it, the player is making a decision about what an imaginary character's imaginary actions *mean*.  Or is that nonsense?

Not nonsense in my opinion. At least is seems to be as good as the definition of Director stance (which is making decisions about things that are not your character) as far as meriting inclusion. I have added a Pseudo-stance that I refer to as Joiner mode, where the player is just present and is actually more or less disinterested in play. That is their level of participation does not even reach your conditions for Audience Stance.

Certainly if we were to make a model that simply addressed how a player interacts with an RPG, then Audience and Director fall in quite easily. It's only when looked at in the perspective of how it relates to a character that Sudience and director start to look odd. But that is the current definition of Stance.

But I'm not sure how this relates to an understanding of Narrativism versus Simulationism. Stance is Mode independent. If ths is completely tangential, then perhaps it should have it's own thread (or perhaps you can find what you're looking for in those old threads). Or is there some link I'm missing?

Mike

[lehrbuch]

Hello,

STANCES
I do think, though, that as soon as the watching person opens his or her mouth to convey that meaning to everyone else - and especially when they do so in reference to what the "active" player is about to do or has done - then they have entered Author stance, or co-Author, if you like.

OK, I buy this.  However, what if they don't communicate the meaning they determined to anybody else?  Or only to a limited number of other players.

I have added a Pseudo-stance that I refer to as Joiner mode, where the player is just present and is actually more or less disinterested in play. That is their level of participation does not even reach your conditions for Audience Stance.

Assigning no meaning to the actions of a character is still assigning a meaning?  Sort of.

But I'm not sure how this relates to an understanding of Narrativism versus Simulationism. Stance is Mode independent.

Yes, Stance is Mode independent.  But what I'm calling "context", in my definition of audience stance, is related to (but not identical to) the Mode which the player perceives the game to be in.

ROLE-PLAYING (NOT GAMES)
Clinton's right, I concede that strong, even defining similarities exist among (say) therapeutic role-playing and some forms of Sim.

As I think Clinton alludes to, the GNS model doesn't seem to address the social aspects of role-playing, which occurs in games as well as not-games.  For example, I indicate that my character takes a certain action *because I know it will please the GM* and therefore she will not be so mad when I tell her I haven't brought any money for the gaming group's pizza purchase.  Clearly, my real-person priorities are dictating character action, but these are not Narrativist priorities.  

I think it would be helpful for a model to include these social aspects of roleplaying, too.    

INSTANCES
Unless I'm terribly wrong somehow, I'm pretty sure that Mike, you, and I have all reached at least a tolerable consensus on this one.

If I'm the "you" of this comment, then I think: yes.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi lehrbuch,

Yup, you were the "you" in the sentence. So we're reasonably good ...

Now, the last issue - that "social box" is definitely in the model, but perhaps it's easy to miss because it's the biggest box, within which the Exploration is enclosed, with GNS being enclosed within that.

Real humans, sittin' around, enjoying being together, scammin' on each other on occasion, getting into romantic hassles, playing these games (or is that word too problematic ...). That's the big box. All the stuff that my essay is about is subordinate to the the box which holds it.

The last chapter in the essay gets into this to some extent, and there's a whisper of it in the beginning of the Exploration chapter as well. When I re-do the essay, I'll explain the social context stuff better right up front.

Best,
Ron