Pre-Breakfast Possibilities

[Marco]

Hi Ron,

That may be true--but be aware that the text I am refering to (not "texts") is The Forge's statement of The Impossible Thing (in the glossary or the GNS Essay). Not some arbitrarily good or bad game text.

-Marco

[Ron Edwards]

Right, I gotcha. My use of "texts" in my post was referring to the game-books, but I know you were referring to my essays. I think we have communicated.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

In order to help ya out, I've posted my Gaming Manifesto. You can use that to analyze my take on story, protagonist, and author.

-Marco

[Gordon C. Landis]

This Marco-quote is from another thread, but my response seems to fit better here:

The text of The Impossible Thing (and much game text) invokes the word "protagonist."

Greyorm says "that means the same thing as author." (I guess, that's how I read him--but I could be wrong.)

How *I* read it (greyorm may or may not agree) is more like this - an 'author' is normally in total control of the protagonists.  I mean, I'm aware of (and have experienced) the phenomena (during writting and RPGs) where a character seems to "take on" a life and make choices I didn't expect - but really, that's just me talking to me, somehow.

So - another reworking of the Impossible Thing: 'Hey, you know that metaphor that a lot of game texts use about GM/author, player/protagonist?  It's not a very accurate metaphor - an author actually controls their protagonists.'  Which is not quite saying "protagonist means the same thing as author", but it does mean that you can't control a protagonist unless you have some kind of author power (which is NOT to say author stance).  So if author power is supposed to be limited to the GM . . . Impossible.

From there, one conculusion is that something has to give.  That something could be protagonism belonging to the players.  All the authoring is done by the GM, and the players are along for the ride, to provide color, and etc.  Or it could be that we give players some of that author power so that they *can* control their protagonists.  

Or - another conclusion is that we were using words we shouldn't have been using in the first place, that GM as author is actually not very accurate, and that players controlling the protagonists isn't actually what's going on.

I'm not sure that's neccessary if we can just establish that the metaphor is NOT an exact one, and describe some of the important ways in which the RPG-meaning of "author" and "protagonist" is NOT the same as the literary use - but I could see abandoning the words, too.

hmm . . . having said I'll that, I now wonder - let's make the statement "all participants have author power, and it is split this way:  world-author = GM, character-author=players."  Is THIS also the Impossible Thing?  If so, why?  I can't quite decide . . . I see some problems with the notion that author-power can be split that way, with no crossover, but . . .

Hoping I get some feedback on that one, and that the first part of my post was somehow useful,

Gordon

[Marco]

This Marco-quote is from another thread, but my response seems to fit better here:

The text of The Impossible Thing (and much game text) invokes the word "protagonist."

Greyorm says "that means the same thing as author." (I guess, that's how I read him--but I could be wrong.)

How *I* read it (greyorm may or may not agree) is more like this - an 'author' is normally in total control of the protagonists.  I mean, I'm aware of (and have experienced) the phenomena (during writting and RPGs) where a character seems to "take on" a life and make choices I didn't expect - but really, that's just me talking to me, somehow.

Gordon

Oh yeah. I totally assume that's what he's saying. And my point would be that's a text author for text stories. Right--the words themselves are bad. That's my take. I say if you use 'em, be aware that they're in-exact. If you ditch 'em--fine by me.
-Marco

[greyorm]

Crimminy, three posts to respond to...well, let's see if I can hit points from all three and sum up where I am with this:

Some time ago over in El Dorado (terms clarification), Walt made the statement, "You can really really drive wherever you want to go while really really obeying all traffic laws." This hit me as a particularly useful analogy.

Consider the basic assumption of a game design incorporating the Impossible Thing:
That the players have control of their guys and (through them) what happens; ie: the players are in charge of their own destiny.
That the gamemaster has control of the setting, the locale, and events that take place within it.

Now, there are a variety of ways to make this work well, which have been discussed at length already (such as Marco's play style), where the GM does indeed control the setting and events, and the players are indeed in charge of their character's own destiny via their reactions to such.

But does this have anything to do, really, with GNS?
A clear example is necessary:
The GM cannot design background & setting "A1: Attack of the Killer Tomoatoes" and leave the players in control. Frex, if the players decide "Hell with these stupid tomoatoes!" then the GM does not control the setting or events of the story, he is not responding to/adjudicating player desires.

Consider adventure modules: if the GM designs adventures (ie: set pieces with NPCs, background motivations and so forth...which are simply modules designed for a specific group) as they are instructed to do in dozens of game texts, they have taken away player control of their destiny by providing pre-rendered situations.

(But isn't that what a GM is supposed to do?!)

Or let's try it this way: "You can do anything you want...but the GM has to plan adventures."
This is TITBB, and this is standard gamer "wisdom." The GM creates a "scenario" or "adventure," creates locales, peoples, events (ie: background & setting).  This is all very functional; but you (the player) cannot do anything you want.

This is where the car analogy comes in: you cannot drive wherever you want and still obey all the traffic laws. Something has to give.

The two common solutions to this are for the players to accept they must partake in the GM's adventure and find reasons to do so (or the opposite, being given reasons to do so); or for the GM to accept he must necessarily wing it without any module and adjudicate (not develop) situations arising from player desires.

My point is not that there is an attainable happy medium between these two (for there is), or that these two solutions are also fine (because they are), but that many game texts (and gamers) assume the former but encourage the latter!
Obviously, this does not work. Agree?

Thusly we get into the problem: Metaphors for how the game is played, as has been said.

I think that we might be able to agree that if they are metaphors, they are poorly defined ones, and thus I will put forth that it is their lack of definition which creates TITBB and the even current discussion.

Simply, TITBB, though this fuzziness, thus produces a variety of different play-styles, all various interpretations of what TITBB's metaphors actually mean.

It doesn't matter that someone defines the terms and priorities and thus avoids the impossiblity set up earlier as the most extreme case of TITBB, the very avoidance of the problem through this sort of definition showcases that there is a problem (the act of definition is itself the problem). BUT it is this hunt for TITBB actually at work that is fouling the discussion up -- because, as I've also said before, you'll never find it at work.

We aren't talking about "how my group defines this" -- even though that's exactly what this discussion has now centered upon -- because it is in the act of that definition that the group avoids TITBB. We can say all we want that the "obvious fix to the problem" is to "do this" or "define this as this" or to "split up power thusly." But that is precisely the point. TITBB doesn't so much declare something as it entails a lack of that something -- and hence the filling in done later.

I like Ron's analogy of TITBB being a hinderance to walking through the jungle of gaming rather than being a thicket which must be passed through. It isn't so much a place you can go or be as it is a pair of stiletto heels in the wilderness.

So, no matter how you (Marco or anyone) parse out the actual metaphors of the statement, the idea itself is not workable because of the lack of definition, and more importantly, it is not a GNS issue: it is not a Narrativist Control Problem, because this has nothing to do with Narrativism, as I've shown above with the "adventure module" problem of play -- which is clearly not dependent upon Narrativist definitions to (dys)function.

Back to the car analogy: I want to be a good driver. The problem is that the text tells me that being a good driver requires me to drive anywhere I want and obey all traffic laws. How I decide this works is dependent upon how I parse what it means to be a "good driver."

Some folks will take this to mean: "I obey all the rules" others will parse this to mean "I have never had an accident" and yet others will parse this in other ways. Some people will say that you can be a good driver and drive on the shoulder, others will vehemently disagree with this.

Some will even claim it isn't a problem because of the way they've parsed the text and defined the terms.

So if renamed anything, the Impossible Thing is the Use of Unclear Metaphor. It doesn't "go away" or "become possible" simply because you define the metaphor for yourself or your group. It doesn't affect you any longer because of the act of your definition, but the lack of clarity is still inherent in the item, requring your defintion.

[Gordon C. Landis]

So, the underlying complaint of the Impossible Thing is that game texts do not adequetly address the issues around a shared creative endeavor?  And that much of what they do write in an attempt to address those issues really doesn't help at all - in fact, at some intersections of intent, interpretation, and particular-group goals, that text actually ends up encouraging people to do things that aren't even possible?

I agree with that complaint, whole-heartedly.  We're probably better off dealing with the complaint than tinkering with the wording of the Impossible Thing.

Gordon

[greyorm]

How *I* read it (greyorm may or may not agree) is more like this - an 'author' is normally in total control of the protagonists

Protagonist does not equal Author to me.
And I reject the stance that has been put forth about GMs controlling EVERYTHING (ie: including protagonists), since that isn't really what the texts of the Impossible Thing say.

If anything, it is about the result and meaning of choices -- by either GM or player -- as stated in texts.

Also, I wanted to comment that I think Ron is off-base in his new assessment that non-Narrativists don't perceive the Impossible Thing clearly due to his articulation of it: I understood the Impossible Thing long before I understood Narrativism -- I come from a strong Simulationist background, and my play style up until I got Narrativism sometime around 2002 was concretely Exploration of Setting.

At the time, I read TITBB and said, "Well, duh!" and moved on, because the actual behavior arising from it usually boils down to Ron's statement: "the players and GM carry out an ongoing power-struggle over the actions of the characters, with the integrity of 'my guy' held as a club on the behalf of the former and the integrity of 'the story' held as a club on behalf of the latter." Club-wielding which I have first-hand experience of as both a player and a GM.

In fact, might I posit that "story" can be parsed as "the thing being Explored"?

[Marco]

Well, if I read you right, we do agree--on all but one thing (and I think Landis actually said this): 'changing the text of The Impossible Thing.'

It's like 10 words long. If the way I read it makes it The Impossible Thing That Is Actually Possible and you can read all my definitions and not see anything that's *really* wierd (or maybe you do--and we can discuss that) then ... why not change it?

Power-struggles happen in work, in marriages, between friends, on ... ummm ... message boards ... but that doesn't (necessiarly) wreck-em. Not every moment of my gaming history is bliss but it's been a *long* time since a session has degenerated into club-beating (and I'm playing with a new group part of the time right now). If what I think is at least a *fairly* standard reading of TIT, then I'd think people would go "Okay, add some text--at least it'll shut Marco up."

-Marco

[Mike Holmes]

I think it has changed, Marco. Sure, maybe not in the original articles, which need to be maintained for historical reasons. But this isn't the first time that this subject has come up before. It has been clarified on at least two other occasions that I'm aware of, and probably a lot more. Those clarifications represent the new definition of the term.

No, a concise update hasn't been posted anywhere. But one can't change posted definitions on a daily basis. Given Ron's statment I'm sure that he's working on recctifying the problem currently.

We could debate the question of how important this topic is (I think it's gotten way overblown), but that would be debating the debate. I can only hopw that some new ideas have arisen from the process of increasing understanding.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Marco, you wrote,

If what I think is at least a *fairly* standard reading of TIT, then I'd think people would go "Okay, add some text--at least it'll shut Marco up."

In the interest of full disclosure, that was pretty much my view about a year ago. Now, I'm working on something a little more constructive toward everyone's interest.

With any luck, people can already see the positive impact of the ancient Simulationist Wars on the Sim essay, and I hope there'll be a similarly evident example with the (almost! almost!) Gamism essay based on the Gamism Flames too, so maybe some hope about the (gasp ... later) Narrativism essay can be used as a foundation for us all to get along until then.

Best,
Ron