thesis : the two approaches to RPG player enjoyment goals

[Caldis]

Hi Doc,

So the simple answer to your question is that, in a game where players have the broad ability to create content, they interact with content already created.   In an extreme case, they may even start by putting up the net, but once that's done, they play over it.

This is also why worries about "pooching reality" are bogus - because players do interact with the "text" and revisions can only be made with the agreement of the other players.

For these reasons, the distingtion interaction vs. independant is meaningless, because, as you can see, all role-playing requires interaction with the "text."

Very well put Alan, and I agree entirely that everyone interacts with the "text".  However I do feel their is a real disconnect between those who are willing to put up the net themselves and those who expect the gm to do it for them.  In play I've run into many people who prefer to hang back and react to whatever situation comes to them rather than trying to create situations themselves.  I've seen many posts here about gms trying to go 'narrativist' and get the players involved in creating the 'text' and running into a brick wall when the players say that's the gm's job.  

So unless I'm seeing something that everyone else is missing I think a seperation does exist and lablelling is probably a useful thing, just as GNS is.  The big question for me about these two modes is whether they are preferences or only due to lack of experience?

[Alan]

I do feel their is a real disconnect between those who are willing to put up the net themselves and those who expect the gm to do it for them.  In play I've run into many people who prefer to hang back and react to whatever situation comes to them rather than trying to create situations themselves.  I've seen many posts here about gms trying to go 'narrativist' and get the players involved in creating the 'text' and running into a brick wall when the players say that's the gm's job.  

I agree with you on this.  But I think the terms "interactive" and "independant" don't fit this concept.  The scale is from players who prefer to react to stimulus to those who prefer to create a stimulous then react to it.  Both of these are interactive with the text and neither are independant of the text.

I just had a brainstorm and I don't know why I didn't think of it before.   This is all about Director stance!  Doc's distinction between VoInt and VoInd and your distinction between players who like to add content and those who don't - it's all about player use of Director stance.

Definately, some players are more comfortable using Director stance than others.  That's all this scale is about - low Director power for players to high Director power for players.

BTW, Director power for players is encouraged in many narrativist designs because it allows the player to project issues that interest them into play.  

However, not every successful narrativist game encourages director stance for players: The Riddle of Steel, for example, or many of the front-end loaded narrativist games that have been mentioned in other descriptions.

[Caldis]

I just had a brainstorm and I don't know why I didn't think of it before.   This is all about Director stance!  Doc's distinction between VoInt and VoInd and your distinction between players who like to add content and those who don't - it's all about player use of Director stance.

Ahh, bang you nailed it again.  I hadnt thought of it in terms of stance either but that is exactly what it is.   Thanks for the clarification.

[Doctor Xero]

However I do feel their is a real disconnect between those who are willing to put up the net themselves and those who expect the gm to do it for them.  In play I've run into many people who prefer to hang back and react to whatever situation comes to them rather than trying to create situations themselves.

Chris :

You once asked me for examples of posters who have insulted the sorts of play about which I write, with implications of laziness or immaturity.  The most recent posts by Caldis and Alan should suffice as examples.

Doctor Xero

[Doctor Xero]

Chris :

Thank you for your insights and for confirming that I've got it.

Alan and Caldis :

No, I'm afraid you still don't get it.  You have treated VoINT as signatory of laziness or a disinterest in full participation.  That's not only insulting, it misses the point.

I will try one last time to explain it.

There's a game in "Whose Line is it Anyway?" in which two pairs of comedians are each handed a random prop, such as a broom to one and a hula hoop to the other.  They take turns seeing who can most cleverly utilize his/her team's prop.  They are demonstrating their creativity at utilizing what they have been given.  They are interacting with those props!  Similarly, at some conventions there is a game in which people compete to ad lib filked songs to popular tunes -- again, a highly creative demonstration of their ability to interact with the pre-existing tune!  In the same way, a battle of wits in which competitors take turns insulting each other in doggerel or iambic pentameter is a test of their ability to creatively interact with the rhyme scheme and cadence.  ALL of these are parallels to Vision of Interaction approaches!

In a Vision of Independence approach to the "text", the two pairs of comedians would first build their props or the teams would build one prop together and then compete at ad libbing off it.  They are also demonstrating creativity, but it is a creativity arising independently from their environment  -- they didn't demonstrate how cleverly they could utilize what is there, they demonstrated how cleverly they could manufacture something there.  Similarly, rather than competing to see who can reuse a popular tune, a VoIND person would create a new tune wholesale.  That is also creative, but it is a different flavor of creativity.

Some of the university artists will take clay and sculpt something beautiful out of it or take a palette and oil paints and paint something delightful on it, and that would be an expression of Vision of Independence creavitity.

Some of the university artists will visit the trash bins, find items thrown away, and ask themselves, "How can I reclaim this discard?  How can I redeem or rework this?"  Their wondrous works of art from the reuse and rework of what is already there would be an expression of Vision of Interaction creativity.

There is no laziness nor passivity involved in reclaiming, reworking, reusing, redeeming.  Vision of Interaction creavity is no less involved and no less active than Vision of Independence creativity.

Yes, they are both expressions of creativity, and yes, they both include personal involvement and may well include the involvement of others, as co-creators or as audience, but they are not identical.

As I written many times before, I think of VoINT and VoIND as the poles of a spectrum along which most RPGs can be found.

In literature studies, relating to and being inspired by something, such as the already-written text, is called "interactive" and has been for many, many years.  Taking a blank notebook and writing in it is "independent" not interactive.  You may not like the terminology, but it's the terminology that is used.  The Forge has specialized terms, such as its use of Narrativist ; literature studies have theirs as well, such as "interaction" to refer to VoINT but not[/i] to VoIND.  Simply going on out of dislike of my terminology would be a petty semantic dispute.  This thread has gone on long enough that simply arguing over semantics would be a waste of Forge time.

If you haven't gotten it now, I don't think you want to, so I think any further discussion would be a waste of Forge time.

Everyone else :

Thank you for your time on this topic.  You have all helped me immensely in my understanding of VoINT and VoIND play.  I think I can now read about it and perhaps even play it or even design it competently.

If no one genuinely objects, I would like to consider this thread closed now, please.

Doctor Xero

[Alan]

Alan and Caldis :

No, I'm afraid you still don't get it.  You have treated VoINT as signatory of laziness or a disinterest in full participation.  That's not only insulting, it misses the point.

If no one genuinely objects, I would like to consider this thread closed now, please.

I object.  It's not polite to put words in someone's mouth then end a conversation.  I want you to know this action appears rude.

Now, I will be happy to end this thread.

[Caldis]

However I do feel their is a real disconnect between those who are willing to put up the net themselves and those who expect the gm to do it for them.  In play I've run into many people who prefer to hang back and react to whatever situation comes to them rather than trying to create situations themselves.

Chris :

You once asked me for examples of posters who have insulted the sorts of play about which I write, with implications of laziness or immaturity.  The most recent posts by Caldis and Alan should suffice as examples.

Doctor Xero

If you've found an insult in what I have written then my apologies, I did not intend any.  It was poor wording on my part and not meant to denigrate any play style.  However I do think you've missed Alans' excellent points that there is no independant action in a roleplaying game, that it's all interactive and the only question is who brings the elements that are interacted with, the gm or the players.

[M. J. Young]

1) A paradigm of collaborative writing.  This allows re-writing of past details, going backwards and forwards in fictional time.  So the secret passage is never considered "real" until the story is published.  

2) The storytelling paradigm suggests that once announced openly in play, the secret passage is considered "real".  

3) The experiential paradigm suggests that the secret passage is considered "real" when the person who has authority over it is sure within her imagination that it is "real".  Some things may require announcement and approval, but many things may not.  For example, PC thoughts or beliefs could be validated by the player, while external world details could be validated by the GM.  In troupe-style play, the world may be broken up into the authority of different players.

I've done collaborative writing and the "Secret passage" - or whatnot - comes into existance when one of the authors communicates it to the other one. It doesn't have to wait for publication. Once the two (or more) authors agree that something exists in a shared work, then it does....

It's best to assume that nothing exists in the external world of the shared fantasy until it's communicated to the players, then agreed on - either tacitly or through some formal system.

I'm more concerned about jumping across a chasm, almost killing myself, and then the next player declares he found a safe foot bridge. Unless my character is a complete moron, she would have seen the foot bridge instead of jumping almost to her death.

You forget, once again, that all face-to-face role-playing involves group negotiation. If I were in that situation, I would challenge that on the "Play it where it lies" principle for just the reasons you mention. The other player has to acknowledge that the crossing is difficult, or come up with a damn good explaination that doesn't belittle my character.

improvising (which, I'll warn Doc Xero, is something many GMs do a lot even in -- or especially in -- completely traditionally structured games)

Second, as I explained earlier, I had chosen the term "interactive" because that is  the term we use in literature studies for what I have been describing about the relationship between reader and text. I have not once intended VoINT to refer to player-to-player interaction, only to player-to-text interaction (except when the latter influences the former).

Drat--I had a ton of things to say about all this, but it appears the thread is closed, and I haven't got my thoughts sufficiently organized on this busy evening to sort these out into new topics, so--maybe another night.

--M. J. Young

[Doctor Xero]

In literature studies, relating to and being inspired by something, such as the already-written text, is called "interactive" and has been for many, many years.

I have not once intended VoINT to refer to player-to-player interaction, only to player-to-text interaction (except when the latter influences the former).

I do think you've missed Alans' excellent points that there is no independant action in a roleplaying game, that it's all interactive and the only question is who brings the elements that are interacted with, the gm or the players.

If the player brings it, it is not[/i] pre-existing, and therefore there can be no interaction with any pre-existing structure if the structure is brought by the players.  There is nothing physically or notionally with which to interact if people sit down at a table and say, "Okay, what do we want to be here?", and therefore since there is nothing[/b] with which to interact, their actions must be grounded independently of the non-pre-existent structures.  It makes no sense to claim otherwise, so if Alan's points are excellent, they must be about something other than VoINT and VoIND since it would be absurd for him to claim interaction where there is none.

The difference between player-to-pre-existing-structure interactivity (VoINT) and player-to-structure construction (VoIND) is an absurdly obvious point if you've read what I've written.

Also, in studies of literature and film and storytelling, the term "interactive" is used precisely as I have used it.  I see no reason to rewrite the pertinent field's lexicon capriciously.  As I have mentioned before, if The Forge has a different term for the same notion, I will happily adopt it when writing here and restrict my use of the term "interactive" to writing papers for literary and culture studies journals.

as I wrote in my very first posting, I was establishing VoINT and VoIND as extreme ends of a spectrum -- with the implied hope that people more experienced with DonJon and such could help me understand the less extreme games since the polar parameters had been set.

This argument about the word "interactive" might make sense if a person were creating a semantic straw man out of the extreme ends of the VoINT-VoIND spectrum, which, as I've mentioned numerous times, is outside my intentions in arguing this model.  Perhaps I should have used the clumsy term "high player-to-pre-existing-structure interaction" for VoINT games such as Runequest and the clumsy term "low player-to-pre-existing structure interaction" for VoIND games such as DonJon.  But that would have been discarding perfectly usable terms from literary and cultural scholarship, so why do it?

Simply going on out of dislike of my terminology would be a petty semantic dispute.

I wanted to end this thread before it devolved into a ridiculous semantic game.

If Alan or Caldis or anyone else wants the last word, please make it and I will try not to respond.

But in the name of sanity, please make a comment which has nothing to do with the use of the term "interactive" in its legitimate, scholarly meaning, and please make a comment which has nothing to do with confusing my writings on player-to-pre-existing structures interactivity (which may be high or may be so low as to seem not to be there, as in the more extreme VoIND games) with player-to-player interactivity (which exists in every RPG to some extent, IMHO), or I won't be able to remain silent.

If you've found an insult in what I have written then my apologies, I did not intend any.  It was poor wording on my part and not meant to denigrate any play style.

I ask you to find no insult in my frustration over the misuse of my words in rebuttals against them.  I am human, so I am often wrong, but I would prefer that I be corrected for something I've actually written not something I never said.  Having people choose to misread my words is my personal bete noir.

Thank you for your gracious apology.  The Forge seems to have many gracious people on it, and I confess my previous online experiences had not prepared for this -- I'm used to having to fight for every courtesy.

I'd like to end this thread with Caldis' gracious apology and my acceptance of it and my thanks to him for it.  After anyone who wants to get in the last word (on something other[/b] than terminology or player-to-player interactivity!), I'd like to leave this thread closed.

Thank you, everyone, for all the intelligent and/or insightful posts.

Doctor Xero

[Doctor Xero]

EDIT: computer hiccough removed

[John Kim]

Doctor Xero -- I think you have some very good points here.   However, those who do want to talk about this may be confused by your having declared the thread closed and then adding more to the debate.

As a suggestion:  Having declared the thread closed, I think you should stick to that, and instead open a new one to continue.  Could you start another topic thread, which specifies that you are talking about player-to-text interactivity, and includes the points quoted below?  

If the player brings it, it is not[/i] pre-existing, and therefore there can be no interaction with any pre-existing structure if the structure is brought by the players.  There is nothing physically or notionally with which to interact if people sit down at a table and say, "Okay, what do we want to be here?", and therefore since there is nothing[/b] with which to interact, their actions must be grounded independently of the non-pre-existent structures.  It makes no sense to claim otherwise, so if Alan's points are excellent, they must be about something other than VoINT and VoIND since it would be absurd for him to claim interaction where there is none.

The difference between player-to-pre-existing-structure interactivity (VoINT) and player-to-structure construction (VoIND) is an absurdly obvious point if you've read what I've written.