thesis : the two approaches to RPG player enjoyment goals

[Doctor Xero]

IMO, Immersion should never be allowed to get in the way of making good roleplaying better.

I disagree.  In my opinion, anti-immersion stances should never get in the way of player enjoyment within the social contract, and our social contract is pro-immersion.

Refusing to engage in such comments robs the other players of the ability to enjoy the deep development of your character that is going on in your head.  Again, what I feel to be selfish behavior.

No, insisting upon engaging in such comments when it explicitly violates the social contract and group consensus of all the players would be far, far more selfish, it seems to me.

In this sense I find (as I have said before) full Immersion to be an inherently selfish play style

I honestly don't see why you try to shame us for enjoying the way we play by such tactics as using the word 'selfish' numerous times to describe the way we enjoy playing.

We engage in immersion together when we watch a film together, attend a concert together, and game together.  We would find it rude for someone to insist upon critiquing however constructively the film while we're in the middle of watching it, or talk frequently throughout the concert, or disrupt the flow during a game.  I would think the interrupters and disrupters would be more selfish than those of us enjoying being immersed within the cinematic/musical/gaming experiences.

There is a large population of RPGamers who game specifically for the exultation of immersion and who take particular delight in knowing their friends have enjoyed immersion as well.  In fact, immersion is really the primary goal we have in roleplaying gaming.  We are as valid a population of gamers as any other.

Doctor Xero

[John Kim]

I just re-read Xero's post, and it occurs to me that John's reading one way and I'm reading another.  Furthermore, he's reading right and I'm misreading.

I was thinking that Jordan was Brian's character, you see.  I thought the point here was that Brian asked whether it would be okay for his character, Jordan, not to be in-suit.  Re-reading, I find that Jordan and Brian are both players.

I thought that seemed weird.  And I think this brings us closer.  If  what happened was that Brian had to break into meta-game discussion with the GM to validate what clothes his own PC was wearing -- then at that point I'd also be pretty quick to suggest increasing player authority, because the problem seems pretty wonky.  But given the actual case the Doctor Xero described, I don't think there is disagreement.  

P.S.  Xero, I completely agree that the "immersion is selfish" charge is nonsense.  Like any other behavior, it is selfish to engage in play which is contrary with the group contract.  If most people want to play immersively in character and one player insists on breaking immersion to make a "better story", then that player is the selfish one.  

Really, I'm more interested in the "Vision of Independence" and "Vision of Interaction" suggestions from the start of the thread.  For example, it is very common in more storytelling styles for the PCs to be separated and have parallel plotlines for them.  It is often cited as a historical relic to push for the PCs to be in the same place and interacting.   Interestingly, in my http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/narrative/paradigms.html">Narrative Paradigm essay, I suggest that experiential play is more internal compared to the external narrative of storytelling.  But even though experience is internal, I think it depends vitally on interaction to bring it about.  

I am hoping to work this into more coherent forms in future essays.

[Valamir]

Xero, in other threads where I've made this point I also made a point of saying that this sort of Deep Immersion can work just fine when it is a universally agreed upon part of the social contract by all participants (just as hard core gamist agendas can work just fine if that's the agreed upon contract).

I apologize for neglecting to make that point here as well.

I will admit, however, that my initial reaction to most claims of a favorite play style is to be somewhat skeptical, because in my experience most claims of "I like to play like X" really translates to "I've always played liked X since I was taught to roleplay this way and haven't really given anything else a fair chance".  I think one has to have pretty substantial experience trying a multitude of ways to play before one can truly settle in on a favorite style.  Like Mike H. is fond of saying, "most gamers would wind up likeing and enjoying most styles of play if they were done well"

I also tend to be skeptical of claims that consist of "everyone in my group prefers it too", because too often that translates to "several in the group tolerate it because they want to play something and hang out with their friends, and even though they'd rather be playing differently they don't want to disrupt the social aspect of the group by being disagreeable about it"

So again I must apologize for not making that clearer in my above post, because while I hold these to be fairly true as rules of thumb, I obviously have zero experience with your group and should have done a better job pointing out that I was making a general claim and not targeting your group specifically.

[John Kim]

I will admit, however, that my initial reaction to most claims of a favorite play style is to be somewhat skeptical, because in my experience most claims of "I like to play like X" really translates to "I've always played liked X since I was taught to roleplay this way and haven't really given anything else a fair chance".  I think one has to have pretty substantial experience trying a multitude of ways to play before one can truly settle in on a favorite style.  Like Mike H. is fond of saying, "most gamers would wind up likeing and enjoying most styles of play if they were done well"  

That makes sense to me.  If someone says they prefer a more traditional style of role-playing, a natural suspicion is that they prefers it just because it is traditional.  They may have never tried other styles, or may have tokenly tried them but quickly rejected them.  Conversely, if someone says they prefer a more non-traditional styles, a natural suspicion is that they prefer it just because it is non-traditional.  For example, I will often hear someone rave about how great a game is, only to later discover that they never actually played it.  Or that they played it once a year ago, and went back to playing something more traditional.  Really they liked the pretensions expressed by the text rather than the actual game-play.  

Skepticism is good to a degree, but of course it can be taken too far.  It has to be tempered with respect for other people's opinions, particularly about their own likes and dislikes.

[Itse]

Andrew Norris:

So my question, which I'll ask my players as well as Neil and Xero, is this: Why is it okay to introduce ideas for new characters and scenes outside of play, but not during play?

I can't speak for anyone else, and this is propably not the kind of answer your looking for, but I find it to be a matter of convenience. It's an easy place to draw the line. Most of us propably sometimes have trouble balancing "I want this to happen" and "I want to see how this turns out realistically". If you draw a line for yourself, which says that "during play, I can only do X", it effectively removes temptation to "spoil it" by introducing elements which will help bring about a desired result but which will weaken the "artistic experience".

Another view, which might be relevant, is the idea One Vision. In every art form (books, movies, music) I'm most interested in things that I would have not come up with for one reason or another. When I go see a movie, I want to see a story which I wouldn't myself have told in that exact way. "I know my stories, I came here to see yours." (This has to do with wanting to see unexpected things, but it's not exactly the same.) In an rpg, whether I'm the GM or the player, I like games in which the GM sets  the game and the players come up with their reactions and interpretations. As a player, I'm interested in what the GM has come up, and I don't want to mess with that, because at that moment I'm interested in HIS ideas, not mine. As a GM, I like to see what a player/character does in a certain situation, so I don't like him modifying that situation. I want to see his "answer" to MY "question", I don't want him modifying it.

Hope you see how this connects to what your talking about :)

[Alan]

I want to address the single vision concern.

I've been playing games that invite player creative input at many levels during play, from acting thier PC, to introducting new NPCs or situations, to requesting scene with specific agendas, to interpreting what a dice result means specifically.  In this kind of game, I've found each individual's experience is not just generated by their own contributions, but by how they play off of the contributions of others.  Outside elements inspire us to new ideas we would not have had otherwise for our own characters.

This kind of synthesis seems to happen naturally.  Very few players come into a session knowing exactly what they wanted to happen.  It just evolves in play.  The hardest part has been for me, as GM, to give up my old ideas that _I_ should know what's going to happen in advance.  It's proven to be great fun.

So these techniques, rather than making play predictable, make it less predictable, providing more creative sparks to play off.

[Itse]

Alan:

I want to address the single vision concern.

<snip>

I've found each individual's experience is not just generated by their own contributions, but by how they play off of the contributions of others. Outside elements inspire us to new ideas we would not have had otherwise for our own characters.

I agree that this is quite possible and even propable, and can make for enjoyable gameplay. A matter of preference it is I think. ...Hmm, a dichotomy, which is very similar to Xero's original thesis, but not quite the same, if I understand correctly. A different POV maybe.

Two different styles of group creativeness: collective vision and interactive visions.

Collective gameplay assumes that the diegesis/imaginary realm is an undivided whole which "belongs" equally to all the participants. (Each participant has equal rights to apply her vision to the diegesis.) In collective gameplay (which is close to what Xero described as interactive, sorry for the inconvenience) there is no need for a GM. In theory, there can be no GM in collective play, as all participants have equal rights to control each part of the game, and so everyone is as much a GM as the others.

Gameplay of interactive visions assumes that parts of the diegesis are divided among the participants in (a more or less) set way, with each participant having superior control over her own part. (Each participant has the right to apply her personal vision to her own part of the game.) ie. players controlling their characters and the GM controlling NPC's (with no expections) is interactive rather than collective (The PC/NPC distinction is not a necessary part of interactive gameplay, it's just very common). Hardline interactive game would be close to what Xero described as independent. (Each character has it's own goals and the the controller (a GM or a player) is free to pursue those goals without concern for the other characters goals.)

What's the difference between this and what Xero wrote? It's in the reversed need for GM. In (my definition of) interactive gameplay (which is close to what Xero described as independent, sorry for the inconvenience again), a GM is needed, since she is the one responsible for controlling "the rest"; all those parts which have not been assigned to anyone. Also, she is the one refereeing the possible (propable) conflicts between the different visions when the different parts come to conflict. More commonly, the GM is the person who is given control over most things, while each player controls her own part (the actions of her character). Thus, the GM has the most power to apply her vision.

[Alan]

Hi Risto,

CREATIVE SPARKS

I think my previous post was in fact a little off topic.   I was commenting, not on how decisions are made, but on how elements that already exist spark creative ideas.  The process I see is that even when a player has lots of control and power over his contributions to the shared fantasy, he's going to find his story is not boring because it bounces off new elements that appear in the game.



BOUNDARIES OF POWER

I think that "Collectivism" and "Interactivity" don't match as terms.  They seem to confuse two different issues.

This axis is about who has say in each individual addition to the shared fantasy -  Boundaries of power - What elements does the player get to play a part in the decision to accept something into the shared fantasy?  At the "collective" level, every player has power over every decision, regardless of whether it's about their character, someone else's, an NPC, the weather, or even a piece of scenery.  

There would also be another end of this scale, but I think "Interactivity" is a poor choice of label for it.  The best I can come up with right now is "Restricted."  A common example of play at this end of the bounary axis would be the historical distrution of GM and player boundaries: players only deciding what their character's think, feel, and try to do, while the GM decides everything else.


TYPE of POWER within a BOUNDARY

Once you establish _who_ can participate in a decision to add to the shared fantasy, you still have to define what kind of proposals an individual player can make.  I think this is related to Stances.  Traditionally, players have 100% power within Actor stance, some in Author stance, and very little in Director stance.  


The two axes interact like this:

Example A

Axis 1 - Everyone has equal say in whether John's idea gets put into play.

Axis 2 - John has power to propose that his character enter a specific scene - BUT he doesn't have the power to propose that another PC stumbles into _his_ scene.


Example B

Axis 1 - Only the GM can finalize a decision.

Axis 2 - John has power to propose that any character enter a specific scene.

[Doctor Xero]

What's the difference between this and what Xero wrote? It's in the reversed need for GM. In (my definition of) interactive gameplay (which is close to what Xero described as independent, sorry for the inconvenience again), a GM is needed, since she is the one responsible for controlling "the rest"; all those parts which have not been assigned to anyone. Also, she is the one refereeing the possible (propable) conflicts between the different visions when the different parts come to conflict. More commonly, the GM is the person who is given control over most things, while each player controls her own part (the actions of her character). Thus, the GM has the most power to apply her vision.

I have to disagree.  I really wish you hadn't chosen to reverse my terms -- from now on, people will have to specify whether they mean Dr. Xero's use of interactivity or Itse's use of interactivity when writing about interactivity, and I don't see how your proposing this confusion benefits anyone.

I would prefer that the terms not be used reversed within this topic.

To make it clearer for you :

In interactive mode, the player derives gaming enjoyment specifically from  interaction with something outside himself or herself.

In the interactive context, it would be onanistic for a player only to interact with himself or herself.  The players need a stable coherent setting against which to interact, and this is provided by the game master -- without the game master for an interactive group, the setting will lack stability and players will spend more time negotiating and renegotiating endlessly the setting rather than spend that time gaming and enjoying immersion within the game.  If the players were gaming independently rather than interactively, they would be independent of the setting rather than interactive against it and thus a game master to provide a vision would be unnecessary.  If the players were gaming independently rather than interactively, they would be independent from any timeline and thus a game master to remember precedence and provide historical continuity would be unnecessary.  If the players were behaving independently rather than interactively, they would be independent of the interests of other players rather than interactive with them as they interact with the game master's setting and thus a game master to referee conflicts and confusions between different visions would be unnecessary.

In independent mode, the player derives gaming enjoyment specifically from independence from anything outside him or herself -- independence from other players, independence from any shared setting given coherence by someone conscripted to organize/cohere the setting for them, i.e. the game master.

In the independent context, it would be intrusive and restrictive for anyone -- game master, other players -- to provide any pre-existing setting or static/stable NPC with which the player through his/her character must interact.  The player alone decides what setting or what NPCs exist for his/her character's interaction, limited only by group consensus as defined by the game system's mechanics.  If the players were gaming interactively instead of independently of the setting, they would need a game master to stabilize the setting so that it were not subject to continual rewrites and revisions of its past as well as its present, but since the setting exists only for the independent purposes of the individual player, such a game master position would be an intrusive restriction.  If the players were gaming interactively instead of independently of the setting's history, they would need a game master to maintain historical continuity and predictability, but in independent play this would only impede an individual's freedom to retcon anything which affects his/her character into his/her independent timeline any time he/she wishes (within game system constrictions).  If the players were gaming interactively instead of independently of the other players and/or their characters, they would need a game master to provide a medium they could share as a common grounds, but since each player's gaming enjoyment comes from full creative independence, there is no justification for a set common grounds -- any time two players' characters work together, they step outside immersion to negotiate what the grounds are for that particular meeting, and those grounds never set a precedent, so they need not have any relationship to past common grounds nor future common grounds unless they want them to.

I don't see how one could logically refer to an interactive vision, dependent as it is upon the player's joy in interacting outside himself or herself, as independent since the player is not creatively segregating himself/herself from setting or players at all.  It is also just as difficult to logically justify labeling an independent vision, with its requirement that nothing external to the player -- not game master nor setting nor other players -- affect his/her personal gaming, as anything like interactive.

To clarify :

I am referring to the player's vision of how to relate to the external setting of the campaign and to the external characters played by other players and a game master if there is a game master.

For a player with a vision of interactive play, the fun comes from relating to the externals by interacting with what is already there.  If there is nothing already there, there is nothing with which to interact, and the fun is lost.  If there is something created by group consensus but constantly subject to change and revision and retconning, there is nothing stable with which to interact, and thus for the interactive player the fun is lost.

For a player with a vision of independent play, the fun comes from relating to the externals by altering them according to the player's individual and independent creative agenda (except as restricted by game system).  If there is something already there which influences or restricts what the player comes up with (a setting, stable NPCs, etc.), there is no unfettered unmitigated independence, and the fun is lost.  If there is something created by group consensus but just as immune to that player's changes and revisions and historical retconning as something created by a game master, the player can no longer constantly sculpt and resculpt his/her the gaming reality in its relationship to his/her character as fits his/her individual, independent creative agenda, and thus for the independent player the fun is lost.

I hope this helps.

Doctor Xero

[Doctor Xero]

This axis is about who has say in each individual addition to the shared fantasy -  Boundaries of power - What elements does the player get to play a part in the decision to accept something into the shared fantasy?  At the "collective" level, every player has power over every decision, regardless of whether it's about their character, someone else's, an NPC, the weather, or even a piece of scenery.  

There would also be another end of this scale, but I think "Interactivity" is a poor choice of label for it.  The best I can come up with right now is "Restricted."  A common example of play at this end of the bounary axis would be the historical distrution of GM and player boundaries: players only deciding what their character's think, feel, and try to do, while the GM decides everything else.


TYPE of POWER within a BOUNDARY

Once you establish _who_ can participate in a decision to add to the shared fantasy, you still have to define what kind of proposals an individual player can make.  I think this is related to Stances.  Traditionally, players have 100% power within Actor stance, some in Author stance, and very little in Director stance.

I find this fascinating but a little difficult to wrap my mind around -- could you please go into this further?  How does this relate to VoIND and VoINT?  Even if it doesn't, I'd still be interested in knowing more about it.  Thanks!

Doctor Xero

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi all,

Dr. Xero wrote:

"In independent mode, the player derives gaming enjoyment specifically from independence from anything outside him or herself -- independence from other players, independence from any shared setting given coherence by someone conscripted to organize/cohere the setting for them, i.e. the game master.

In the independent context, it would be intrusive and restrictive for anyone -- game master, other players -- to provide any pre-existing setting or static/stable NPC with which the player through his/her character must interact. The player alone decides what setting or what NPCs exist for his/her character's interaction, limited only by group consensus as defined by the game system's mechanics."


Can anyone give me any examples of rules or actual play where something like this actually happens?  It's not that I don't believe it happens, it's just that it seems so extreme I've never heard of it -- and I honestly can't imagine such a thing working well for more than 25 minutes.

(Oh, I'm refering specifically to table top gaming examples, not chat or email stuff.)

Thanks,

Christopher

[Alan]

I'm with Christopher.  I've never seen role-playing where each player lives in his own private fantasy.  

If I understand Doctor Xero's definitions of independant and interactive, all role-playing is interactive.  It can't function otherwise.

[Doctor Xero]

Can anyone give me any examples of rules or actual play where something like this actually happens?  It's not that I don't believe it happens, it's just that it seems so extreme I've never heard of it -- and I honestly can't imagine such a thing working well for more than 25 minutes.

Most game systems exist somewhere on a spectrum between these two visions, although most traditional RPGs are closer to the vision of interaction while most GMless RPGs are closer to the vision of independence.

If you draw a line for yourself, which says that "during play, I can only do X", it effectively removes temptation to "spoil it" by introducing elements which will help bring about a desired result but which will weaken the "artistic experience".

I'll try to give you an example of play involving players with VoIND but not VoINT approaches.

Charlie, Carlos, and Chip all decide to play a collectivist RPG called DungeonDelvers.  DungeonDelvers is a VoIND game, with no game master and no pre-figured environment, encounters, or equipment.  (In other words, there is no pre-existing reality with which to interact nor any "keeper of continuity" with whom to react, only player independence, so the game would be boring for any purely VoINT player.)  Each player describes his or her player-character with three labels and then has ten pennies to spend.  Any player may state anything he or she wants about anything which occurs within the campaign so long as no other player challenges it -- if he or she gets away with it, he or she can even violate the three labels or ignore the nominal campaign motif of fantasy dungeon exploration.  If challenging occurs, however, a bidding war of pennies takes place.  Pennies are not replenished until the beginning of the next game, so once a player is out of pennies, he or she will lose any bidding wars that occur (if anyone bothers to challenge his or her narrations).  Play continues until the individual (or group) decide that a scene has reached a natural 'pause'.

Charlie has no pre-existing races to interact with, no dwarves or elves or orcs or even dragons which exist.  He has no obligation to be in the same place as any other player's character or even in the same dungeon or same fantasy realm -- pure independence of existence.  There is no world with which to interact except that which he independently describes into existence.  Charlie declares that his character, Frodeau, walks up to a locked red dungeon door.  He declares Frodeau finds the dungeon key under the door and uses it to open the door -- to his surprise, no one challenges him.  He declares Frodeau finds a red dragon blocking his path.  Chip grins and tosses him a penny, declaring Frodeau finds a tribe of sword-wielding monkeys.  Three more pennies later, Charlie has protected his independence from Chip's intrusive interactions, and Frodeau is facing a red dragon.

Carlos declares his character, Mariadawk, looks for Frodeau but finds the footprints lead him to a the selfsame dungeon door.  Carlos states that Mariadawk walks through the door and stares at Frodeau, calling out, "Husband?"  He waits for Charlie to challenge him, but Charlie wants to hoard his remaining six pennies and says nothing.  Carlos declares Mariadawk casts a spell to magically leave the room and ends up in another reality based on the chocolate factory in Willie Wonka.  No one says anything, so he has Mariadawk find an oompa loompa guarding the way.  Chip tosses him a penny and declares the oompa loompa attacks.  Carlos likes this idea; then, continuing to follow his creative agenda independent of anything the other characters do/meet/see, he decideds Mariadawk defeats the oompa loompa and it swears eternal fealty to her.

Chip has nothing pre-set with which to interact, either, so he declares that his character, Perry Grintook, wakes up in the middle of a pile of treasure, wondering how he got there.  He waits for suggestions, but Charlie is trying to decide how he wants Frodeau to defeat the red dragon and Carlos is trying to decide what Mariadawk can find next in the chocolate factory.  So he asks his friends what to do next.  After teasing the newbie VoIND player that he should be able to figure that out on his own or else stick to games with game masters, Charlie and Carlos stop the kidding and suggest that Chip have Perry suffer amnesia until he can come up with something more interesting and have his character encounter something nasty amidst the gold.  Since there is nothing external for Chip through Perry to interact with, Chip has to create something of his own -- no surprises, nothing he needed a game system to determine, nothing that couldn't have been done by himself in front of a Microsoft Word document in creative writing.  Since Charlie and Carlos are on their own creative adventures, and Chip doesn't feel like he understands VoIND gaming well enough to join either of them without intruding, he has no other characters for Perry to play off, either.   So Chip decides to have Perry face a big rat.  He asks Charlie and Carlos how to figure out whether Perry defeats the big rat, and they point out that he simply decides it for himself, on his own, however matches his own creative agenda.  Chip declares Perry defeats the big rat and finds a magic wishing lamp.  Then he hands the game over to Charlie again.

Charlie decides to ignore what Carlos had said about husband.  He decides it would be more fun to have swum in rather than walked in, so he declares that the door had actually been an underwater entrance.  Carlos doesn't challenge him even though this would mean Mariadawk had been wet all along, so Charlie continues on.  He declares the red dragon charges at his character and Frodeau dodges out of the way then heads down the hall.  There, he finds . . . erm . . . a patrol of trolls.  Frodeau hides until they pass by.

On Carlos' turn, he declares Mariadawk had never gotten wet, and since no one challenges him on it, he doesn't worry about how it occurred; he just continues on with his independent narration.  If none of the players object, he could even have Mariadawk retroactively turn out to be male, or an oompa loompa who's just found his/her homeland.

And so it continues.

When I go see a movie, I want to see a story which I wouldn't myself have told in that exact way. "I know my stories, I came here to see yours."

According to one vision, the player's enjoyment goal is interactive
---snip!--
According to the other vision, the player's enjoyment goal is independent -- specifically to independently create the campaign elements

Doctor Xero

[RDU Neil]

... but Doctor Xero's description is not far off from what I felt happened in my one playing experience of a VoIND game.  It was Changeling, run mostly diceless, with a GM, but one who only nominally structured the world, and otherwise simply waited for players to come up with actions befitting their characters, rather than exerting some control on the game so that players had a reason to interact with each other.

Players all but ignored events that the GM described, as well as other players attempts to interact in a shared world.  While they didn't go off on flights of fancy such as Doc described above, they did forge personal story lines for their characters that allowed them to "be" that character... but I felt in a very selfish, solipsitic manner.  One player simply disagreed with everything that was presented to her or happened around her, and wrote it off as being a "Nocker!"   Another ran about describing his affectations and such, and pursuing a social agenda which was interesting in concept, but made no effort to talk with the other players, respond to their attempts to interact, or care at all about what the other characters did.  A third just quietly sat and listened to everyone else, but did nothing himself.  A fourth strutted about made battle plans and decisions that would affect the whole group, but never asked for assistance or told the others what he would do.

It was a nightmare, except for the GMs wife, who was playing a nutball character who was at least fun to talk to.  

I will say that this was clearly VoIND gaming... but not at all Narrative in the GNS, sense.  It was Sim with a focus on character... players so "into" their characters that they used that as a method to just do their own thing, without interacting with others.  

This thread has helped me understand a bit more about GNS, by showing that VoIND doesn't necessarily describe Nar play... but can happen in any one of the three CAs, as Ron has defined them.

The layers upon layers of complexity in these theories almost makes the worthless as anything more than chatter fodder... but hey, it's interesting chatter fodder.

[Valamir]

This seems like nothing more than pure Lumpley Principle, and dysfunctional Lunmply Principle at that.  The Lumpley Principle basically says that nothing said in any game has any credibility except to the extent that the player give it credibility.  These players aren't giving credibility to anything but their own statements.  This seems to me to be a fundamental social dysfunction.  Don't see any other definition for it (save for the possibility of a social contract agreeing to play this way as part of some surreal experiment).

What you're describing is not a path to RPG enjoyment, its shear dysfunction at the social level.  And pretty egregiously so.

Surely this must just be a bad example, and not what you really are trying to describe as being VoInd...