Helpful and Enjoyable? Bah humbug!

[Callan S.]

Mmm, in terms of that from my own play I can see significant focus on playing in character and engaging the story, etc. Now even if no body bites your head if you stop doing those things to talk about the game as a whole, the heavy focus on the roleplay, etc, means there is a push away from this kind of ooc talk. This push is enough to start eliminating any 'game as a whole' management any particular user might want to initiate.

There doesn't need to be any agression involved really, to stop helpful game management techniques being applied.

[iambenlehman]

Eveything else - no, really. I've never encountered that. Maybe I've been playing RPGs in some distant backwater planet on the edge of the galaxy?

Um, yes? (Sorry, I'm just wowed.)

You've never heard of or seen the dreaded rule, "No giving advice to someone about what to do unless your character is there"?

You know, to prevent, "I'll bet there's a secret door here leading to the lich's lair. You should look for secret doors!" and "Trolls regenerate everything but fire! Cast a fireball!" and "Ask the king about letting me out of the prison!" and so on and so forth, which is always considered to be 'cheating.' This is also often used to preclude discussion about the game as well, unless it is the characters who are discussing events and plans.

BL>  Dude, you just described almost every game I ever played (well, with one group, at least).  If there isn't the table-talk, how do you relate in-game, especially if the party is split?  And, in a heavy-gamist strategy engine like D&D3, how do you keep the "slower" players like me up on the strategy?

I'm getting the feeling that every isolated group has its own rules about this, because almost no system is actually explicit about it.  Wow.

yrs--
--Ben

[Cemendur]

. . .Finally, I have seen people reprimanded for interruptions (and have done so myself) to emphasise that this is an important moment for that player or PC, and they should respect that (the latter instance strongly resembles certain ritualistic practices IMO).

Apart from that, I'll readily admit to being hostile to OOC talk to a certain degree. When I'm roleplaying, I like to be focussed on that, which is why I reserve time for off-topic talk (which is important to me as well) before and after the game. I don't appreciate lengthy stories about so-and-so while I'm trying to watch a movie, same goes for roleplaying.?

I'll give three metaphors involving movies. Each is a social contract:

1) Intermission - Individuals can freely discuss the program.
2) *Pause* - The movie (rpg) is paused for (OOC) commentary.
3) Play like Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (3000?) - The movie (game) runs like normal with (OOC) dialogue commentary concurrent with events.

I know a few individuals who do not tolerate any interruptions from their movies. I do not enjoy movie watching with them. I would never role-play with them.

Personally, I never finished an episode of MST3000, nor do I care for more that the fleeting infrequent concurrent commentary with my movie watching or my role-playing. Pausing is less frequent, but can last longer.

We have smokers in our games. Intermissions happen every 2 hours.

The map is not the reality. These metaphors are only a glimpse at OOC/IC relationship. I would like to see further research into its relationship with ritual theory.

. . .
This is the strata:

[*]Intolerance towards OOC dialogue . . .

[*]because it's breaking character, as though the group were in a play.
[*]because it's cheating if you hint and disenfranchises a player if you push decisions on him that you see as obvious.
[/list:u]

I've played both styles and I've played where OOC dialogue is not discouraged. In fact I am currently playing an extremely gamist version of epic D&D that turns this on its head. Particular forms of OOC dialogue are incouraged.

For instance, players are rewarded for solving puzzles using OOC knowledge and introducing it OOC.  The reward is in the form of in-character advancement exp.

GM: "Herald comes across a building. On the front is painted a red cross."

George says to Tom (playing Herald) OOC, "Hey, Tom its a hospital."

GM: "Good thinking George, 250 exp." (George's character is not even in the scene.)

- O.k., that example was too easy (everyone knows OOC that its a hospital) , but it explains the concept.)  -

I've played other RPGs (and other versions of D&D) with the same gaming group, where this style of play is discouraged.

. . .
[*]as to derail play; expressing apathy or impotence of deprotagonization by Guys hitting on chicks; watching movies inbetween fight scenes; listening to music; having a conversation about work and at a volume to drown the dialogue of play; excessive joking announcing pointless actions (e.g. "I get drunk and have sex with the Ogress.")
[/list:u]]

This rarely happens in games I play between fight scenes. When it occurs, it is usually during fight scenes - when playing D&D (esp. as written).

. . .
And the good stuff, potentially:

[*]Adopting tasteful mannerisms and expressive qualities to invest in a character and enrich the portrayal of game world experience.
[*]Take the cue of one player, repeatedly shifting all his d10's from one hand to the next, and say, "Ok.  How can we get Barbarus involved?"
[/list:u]

I'm lost to the context of your second bullet.

In sum, the attention to dialogue, its use, its restrictions, is important. However, the particulars are not set in stone. Their is no "true way". Hell, their isn't a true way for me. I enjoy playing different styles for different games, or even for different characters, or even at different scenes. Its all in the context- the set, setting and expectation.[/list]

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I thought it was about Ron's observation that talking about a game is/was considered wrong and a bad thing by lots of folks who play those games. At least, that what it should be about.

And apparently textual advice in some RPG book either for or against the idea that talking about it is bad.

I wish I had more to add to the discussion, but this issue never really came up for me. I think in my experience the channels were always open but nobody thought to use them. Sort of like the prison in that show the State on MTV where the door was wide open but the warden told the prisoners to just consider that open door "off-limits" so no one used it, not that we were told it was off limits, but we all acted like we were.

[ethan_greer]

James,
Oh, okay.  Thanks for the clarification.

[clehrich]

The map is not the reality. These metaphors are only a glimpse at OOC/IC relationship. I would like to see further research into its relationship with ritual theory. ... In sum, the attention to dialogue, its use, its restrictions, is important. However, the particulars are not set in stone. Their is no "true way". Hell, their isn't a true way for me. I enjoy playing different styles for different games, or even for different characters, or even at different scenes. Its all in the context- the set, setting and expectation.

From my perspective, there are two levels here.  As you note, what's going on is the group formulating boundaries between "the game" and what is outside it.  Of course these boundaries depend considerably on the group, the game, the social context, and everything else.  But the point is that there is always a boundary drawn.  This is, if you will, step one.

Step two is more complicated.  It's obvious that there has to be a boundary in place, however fluid; without one, you could never adjudicate anything, and you wouldn't have a game at all.  But what are the implications of and claims about where the boundary is set?

I think what Ron is talking about is the tendency to naturalize this boundary on the basis of a false ideal, often immersion.  So a game-text tells the group that ideally, everything should be done in-character; OOC conversation should, ideally, not happen at all.  In reality, of course, OOC stuff will occur, but the claim is that it should be minimized, and furthermore should not be allowed to "count," i.e. affect what goes on within the game's boundaries.

This constructs an ideal-type of what gaming "really is," i.e. a One True Way sort of thing.  And when I say it gets "naturalized," what I mean is that such game-texts, and such groups, generally do not make arguments or explanations of why it should be like this, nor seriously consider the possibility that there are other ways of doing things.  The implication is that immersion of some sort is obviously what good gaming should be like, and the only question is how best to effect a close approximation.  And that leads to policing of OOC commentary, and ranking of players and groups on the basis of their immersive skills, and so forth.

In terms of ritual, one good way to see this is if you think about ideas of what a ritual "should" be like.  Consider a ritual performer during a ritual, for example a priest celebrating Mass, or a priestess drawing down the Moon.  There is a common notion that these people, as high-level performers, should be totally involved in what they are doing; it's sort of like some theories of acting that strive toward total involvement.  The claim, usually implicit (although not uncommonly explicit in neo-Pagan and other revival movements), is that the priest or priestess should be completely wrapped up in the spiritual moment, and that by being so wrapped up (to the point of essentially not seeing anything outside or being distracted) a greater spiritual validity and depth is achieved.  By extension, other ritual participants (the congregation, etc.) are enjoined to feel that they should be totally involved in what's happening, and that deep spiritual experience is dependent upon this; because a given congregant can't seem to stop thinking about the fight he had with his spouse last night, he actually experiences the ritual less intensely because he believes that his "distraction" impedes spiritual experience.

Continuing this line of thought, note that there is a tendency to think of non-modern or non-Western societies as more able to be totally involved in this way.  Indeed, this is part of why Wiccans claim the antiquity of their ritual inspirations, and why many Protestant groups emphasize the rhetoric of the "primitive Church", i.e. that they do things the way they were done in the old days, back when people were more able to become totally involved in spiritual events.  But in fact, there is no real evidence to support this claim.  There is no way to demonstrate that intensity of spiritual experience, whatever that would mean exactly, goes hand in hand with total immersion or lack of distraction.  It can become true, of course, if everyone involved believes that such immersion is required, but there are many societies in which such a sharp division between in-ritual and out- is not deemed necessary for "true" experience of divinity or whatever.

Coming back to RPG's, the point is that there is a longstanding tendency to believe that deep immersion and intense experience are very tightly linked.  Because this connection is taken as "natural" and obvious, because of the same factors as lead many and perhaps most people of our society to connect spiritual experience with total involvement, game-texts tend to emphasize ways of enforcing immersion as the obvious and natural way to achieve good gaming.

The point of the ritual conception here is that these divisions are not natural or definite, but rather are entirely socially conditioned.  And I think what Ron is talking about is simply that gamers ought to divorce good gaming from immersion, such that the goal of good gaming can be achieved by many methods, including but not in any way limited to immersion.

I don't know if any of that is useful, but a couple of people mentioned the ritual thing and I thought I'd follow up a bit.  I do want to be sure that folks understand the concept of spiritual experience and immersion, and that I'm not saying that such immersion is either at odds with or supportive of such intensity; I just mean that, as with gaming, there are many ways to skin a cat, and immersion is only one.

[John Kim]

I think what Ron is talking about is the tendency to naturalize this boundary on the basis of a false ideal, often immersion.  So a game-text tells the group that ideally, everything should be done in-character; OOC conversation should, ideally, not happen at all.  In reality, of course, OOC stuff will occur, but the claim is that it should be minimized, and furthermore should not be allowed to "count," i.e. affect what goes on within the game's boundaries.  

This constructs an ideal-type of what gaming "really is," i.e. a One True Way sort of thing.  

Sigh.  I guess we're back to the "Deep Immersion" issue, and the idea that D&D and other traditional games are really at the height of deep immersion -- against any OOC conversation.  I really can't see where anyone gets this.  Now, LARPs like Hamlet or Mellan himmel och have are deep immersion.  In contrast, D&D is primarily beer-and-pretzels and is really darn far from promoting deep immersion in any sense, and particularly in the sense of "no OOC conversation".  

Within tabletop games, the only game that I know of that seriously tries to minimize OOC conversation is Puppetland.  However, even it doesn't qualify as "deep immersion" in my opinion.  

I have certainly seen groups and individuals who try to minimize OOC conversation, and those who declare it as the "One True Way".  And in case it isn't clear, I completely disagree with it as the "One True Way" -- but it certainly can work.  But I don't see that as the dominant form of role-playing nor what most tabletop RPGs are designed for.  In the wild, gaming groups vary tremendously in how much and what kinds of OOC conversation they prefer.  

Coming back to RPG's, the point is that there is a longstanding tendency to believe that deep immersion and intense experience are very tightly linked.  Because this connection is taken as "natural" and obvious, because of the same factors as lead many and perhaps most people of our society to connect spiritual experience with total involvement, game-texts tend to emphasize ways of enforcing immersion as the obvious and natural way to achieve good gaming.  

Other than Puppetland's rule #2, I'm not sure what you're talking about.  Outside of that, the only thing I have seen is GM advice which recommends against particular kinds of OOC conversation or processes.  But I don't see any tabletop game which idealizes complete lack of OOC conversation.

[clehrich]

I think what Ron is talking about is the tendency to naturalize this boundary on the basis of a false ideal, often immersion.  So a game-text tells the group that ideally, everything should be done in-character; OOC conversation should, ideally, not happen at all.  In reality, of course, OOC stuff will occur, but the claim is that it should be minimized, and furthermore should not be allowed to "count," i.e. affect what goes on within the game's boundaries.

Sigh.  I guess we're back to the "Deep Immersion" issue, and the idea that D&D and other traditional games are really at the height of deep immersion -- against any OOC conversation.

I really didn't say that, John.  This is not a question of absolutes.

No, such discussion is bad! It detracts from the game session! It makes you step out of character, and thus takes others out of character! If you speak out of character about the game, you are obviously trying to gain some sort of mechanical advantage over the gamemaster: you're a munchkin. If you speak out of character about anything else, you are obviously not interested in the session -- that makes the GM sad -- please don't bother others during the game. No jokes! Jokes are bad, because they break immersion and distract everyone at the table; they can destroy the mood of a scene!

This is deliberately exaggerated, but fairly accurate.  Let's suppose even one of these notions is operative within a group.  That sets up a notion of an ideal-type of play, one in which OOC stuff does not occur.  Note what an ideal-type is: it's something that everyone knows never actually happens, but thinks of as a desirable utopian goal.  What I'm talking about, and what I think Ron was referring to, is the point that this utopian goal need not be operative at all.  And did I say anything about D&D?  I think that would be a poor example of this sort of gaming, actually; some people apparently played it that way, but I never saw it done.

Coming back to RPG's, the point is that there is a longstanding tendency to believe that deep immersion and intense experience are very tightly linked.  Because this connection is taken as "natural" and obvious, because of the same factors as lead many and perhaps most people of our society to connect spiritual experience with total involvement, game-texts tend to emphasize ways of enforcing immersion as the obvious and natural way to achieve good gaming.  

Other than Puppetland's rule #2, I'm not sure what you're talking about.  Outside of that, the only thing I have seen is GM advice which recommends against particular kinds of OOC conversation or processes.  But I don't see any tabletop game which idealizes complete lack of OOC conversation.

This is exactly what I'm talking about.  There is a deliberate attempt to constrain the types of activity that can enter the sphere of play.  And of course, there has to be some such restraint.  But why is it always the same sort of restraint?

First, name as many games as you can think of that encourage players toward something like Pawn Stance.  From that list, how many also say that OOC conversation is often distracting or otherwise problematic?

Now, name as many games as you can think of that encourage strong OOC play.  From that list, how many also say that IC conversation is distracting or otherwise problematic?

Seriously.  Think about it a minute.  How many RPG's have you ever seen that discourage in-character conversation?  Now ask yourself why this isn't just as common as discouraging OOC conversation.  Sure, in-character stuff, even immersion, can make a great game, but it isn't needed.  Just so, OOC stuff can be great, but isn't needed either.  And the irrelevant yapper isn't really much worse than the drama queen, to look at it in negative terms.  So how come RPG's take it for granted -- read, naturalize as ideal -- that IC is good and normal and OOC is dubious?

[John Kim]

Alright, I think my reply here was kind of huffy -- I think I was dragging the prior "Deep Immersion" discussion into this, but on the other hand I think this is something of a re-hashing.  

That sets up a notion of an ideal-type of play, one in which OOC stuff does not occur.  Note what an ideal-type is: it's something that everyone knows never actually happens, but thinks of as a desirable utopian goal.  What I'm talking about, and what I think Ron was referring to, is the point that this utopian goal need not be operative at all.  And did I say anything about D&D?  I think that would be a poor example of this sort of gaming, actually; some people apparently played it that way, but I never saw it done.  

OK, so you admit that the most popular tabletop RPG does not match what you say, right?  Then at least we're getting somewhere.  If you were to level this charge against particular RPGs -- like, say, GURPS -- then I would have more sympathy for your case.  

But all RPGs are not alike.  These days there are tons of games with meta-game mechanics, like Torg which actively encourages trading and discussion of Drama Deck cards, or Ars Magica, or Buffy, or many others.  Many games don't have direct mechanics but encourage a more meta/audience-level feel: like Feng Shui, Toon, and HERO.  Then there are the more beer-and-pretzels type games, like D&D (to some degree) and Rune.  

Other than Puppetland's rule #2, I'm not sure what you're talking about.  Outside of that, the only thing I have seen is GM advice which recommends against particular kinds of OOC conversation or processes.  But I don't see any tabletop game which idealizes complete lack of OOC conversation.

This is exactly what I'm talking about.  There is a deliberate attempt to constrain the types of activity that can enter the sphere of play.  And of course, there has to be some such restraint.  But why is it always the same sort of restraint?  

Answer: it's not.  If you read Feng Shui it has a radically different set of advice than GURPS.  Games vary enormously both in what is encouraged by the rulebooks and in how gamers actually play them.  Some roleplayers insist that out-of-character secrets are kept secret from the players, but it is also extremely common to hold the opposite.

[Valamir]

John, what you keep failing to take into account, is that it is entirely irrelevant what proportion of actual play groups actively enforce the extreme version of OOC play.  They are simply drifting the game to accomodate.  This is no different than choosing to ignore the weapon vs. armor modifiers in AD&D 1e.  The rules are still very much in the book, your play group is deciding how to implement them.

But simply because many groups don't actually adhere to all of the rules as written, does not make the existance of the rules in the first place harmless.

Those rules set up a Platonic ideal of what a game is supposed to be.  Having rules for Weapon vs. Armor sets up an ideal of the sort of things that should be in the rule book even if they're not used.  How many people today criticize a game for not being "complete" because it doesn't have vehicle combat rules or some other presumed thing that should be in the book...even if 99% of play doesn't involve vehicle combat.

Its the same thing.  The vast majority of gamers accept the ideal as being ideal, even if they themselves never actually approach it.  Its still very much creates a Moses-on-the-mountain environment that pervades the hobby.

Then set out a game which instead of explicitly condemning meta play and promoting immersion actually has rules that clearly require meta play, and you get an immediate back lash.  Even though most players don't actually follow the strict guidelines of "proper play" anyway, the presence of those guidelines is both comforting and a familiar landmark.  

Get outside of the relatively limited circle of internet RPG discussion forums like the Forge and RPG.net and you run smack into this backlash like a brick wall.

What makes RPG.net such a special place, is the enormous concentration of gamers who are ready willing and able to experiment.  Go outside of that circle and the gamer community is much different.

That said the internet is making greater inroads, and the environment is not as hostile as it once was.  But historically this issue has had a huge and lasting impact on the hobby.

[John Kim]

John, what you keep failing to take into account, is that it is entirely irrelevant what proportion of actual play groups actively enforce the extreme version of OOC play.  They are simply drifting the game to accomodate.  This is no different than choosing to ignore the weapon vs. armor modifiers in AD&D 1e.  The rules are still very much in the book, your play group is deciding how to implement them.  

I don't see how relates to what I said.  I claim that the rules are not in "the book" -- that is, tabletop RPG books do not uniformly idealize deep immersion.  Now, for particular games may do this -- but it isn't a uniform truth.  For example, if you were to cite GURPS as a game which idealizes "no OOC information", I'd absolutely agree with you.  But on the other hand, D&D is not this way.  In Forge jargon, it involves no Drift for me to play D&D in a non-immersive,  beer-and-pretzels, lots-of-OOC-chat fashion.  

Then set out a game which instead of explicitly condemning meta play and promoting immersion actually has rules that clearly require meta play, and you get an immediate back lash.  Even though most players don't actually follow the strict guidelines of "proper play" anyway, the presence of those guidelines is both comforting and a familiar landmark.  

Get outside of the relatively limited circle of internet RPG discussion forums like the Forge and RPG.net and you run smack into this backlash like a brick wall.  

Maybe this is a regional thing?  For example, I just went to KublaCon in Burlingame, and there people were clamoring to get into the Buffy/Angel RPG events, and no one seemed to have a problem with the Drama Points and their plot twist usage.  Moreover, they seemed to take for granted many OOC practices like having isolated-character action spoken in front of all the players.

[neelk]

This constructs an ideal-type of what gaming "really is," i.e. a One True Way sort of thing.  And when I say it gets "naturalized," what I mean is that such game-texts, and such groups, generally do not make arguments or explanations of why it should be like this, nor seriously consider the possibility that there are other ways of doing things.  

I don't agree with this -- your argument here has a rather High Modern "all architecture must show the ductwork and girders" sound to it. Sure, I work hard to make sure that the rules in my homebrews all have some justification, but I don't always put that justification into the game. It might break the flow of the text, or a rule's justification might require a comparison to other possible rules that aren't actually in this game. Either way, my attitude would be "save it for the designer's notes".

====

Incidentally, I actually have run a game that had explicit rules governing which kinds of jokes  were permissible and which weren't. My short Leftover Dudes campaign had the rule that all jokes about the characters, setting and game events had to be in-character, and that at-the-table out-of-character jokes were strongly discouraged.  

I was trying to push the game towards a Buffy or Scream style mix of action/horror and comedy. In these movies and TV shows, a lot of the comedy arises from the self-referentiality -- Roger Ebert once wrote that very few of the characters in horror movies ever act like they've ever seen one. But the characters in Scream or Buffy have all seen the same horror movies and read the same comic books that the players have, and are able to make the same connections that the players do. Furthermore, jokes are used as a tension-relieving device. By requiring that jokes about game events have to be in-character, we create the illusion that the jokes were a sign that the characters were scared and trying to defuse their own fear, rather than that the players are disengaging from potentially-intense situations.

[greyorm]

I, personally, am sick hearing responses that boil down to, "Oh that NEVER happens," or "Gee, that must be some FREAK thing that only ever happened to you," regarding how the groups I've been a part of functioned. It's incredibly insulting and is a complete belittling of mine own and others' similar experiences, so, really, please knock it off.

After all, according to the repeated hand-waving on this issue, all my 1st and 2nd Edition AD&D experiences either never really occurred or were just bizzare flukes. Five different groups, five totally different sets of people, and half of those from completely different geographical areas and introductions to gaming, spread over two decades...but no. We must have just all read the text wrong. Every single one of us.

Let's be serious.

There's obviously more going on here when you consider the facts: numerous other gamers report the same sorts of standard behavior in their groups regarding OOC conversation and IC idealization; writers for game magazines reference what could be called "the myth of perfection through immersion" constantly in written articles (for as far back as I can recall); there is always talk about how great, glorious and grand a particular session was "because we didn't roll a die all night" and "it was all about role-playing;" and snobbish types always point out "It's called ROLE-playing."

Yet these facts seem lost to some, in either their existance or their implications. These items point towards, or support, the idealization of immersion as a goal and thus affect the extent and types of allowable OOC conversation during a game to the point that what would be otherwise valid conversation among players is often painted as "bad."

Raise your hand if you remember the "if you say something, your character says it" house rule? Yeah. That one: the one that's been spoofed in gaming comics; the one that's been offered as advice by the wise and sage as the cure for DMs in dealing with "disruptive" players.

Part of the problem is that we aren't discussing "Deep Immersion" here, or rather, as I'm begining to think, "Deep" Immersion isn't about the "depth" at all, but the perception of what it is and what it means; it's about the influence of the ideal on the culture. So perhaps the name is a misnomer, perhaps clearer terminology would help...but that's besides the point.

We're talking about talking about play, during play, being considered a bad thing by many groups. Note that my initial statements to James were examples of various rules I have seen implemented at various times in play; the only-sometimes-verbalized-but-understood rules of play. They are the impressions one gains from reading about "How to Game" in various magazines over twenty years, and listening to gamers write and talk about gaming on various websites and chatrooms. For myself, it was very early that I "learned" the ideal in reading Dragon magazine and playing with established gamers from elsewhere in the country in my first year or two of gaming.

These aren't exactly the problem being discussed, but they're related to it, and thus the reason I brought them up -- they're illustrative. As with the following:

Above, when I talk about one player giving another player advice, I'm not talking about stealing the spotlight from them, I'm talking about plain old giving advice. One group I was a part of had a rule, "You can't help another player with what to do or even give hints unless your character is there, and conscious." This meant, for example, we could not discuss what we thought the villian was up to, as players, unless our characters were together, and THEY were discussing it.

I don't recall what the "punishment" was, if any (beyond the social stigma of having "done something wrong"), though I do recall players whose characters were slain being told to leave the table and find something else to do (often, "Go roll up a new character -- but don't bother anyone"). Half the time, the owner of the slain would simply go watch TV, since they weren't allowed input about the game (having no character to input with), and as "talking about play" during play with no in-game representation of a possible speaker was treated as a distraction (off-topic).

Here's where it gets wonky, in retrospect: you could talk about the game if you had a character there...even if it was just "talk about the game." Compare:

Graham: "Damn, that would have been a great place to roll a 20! I swear my dice suck tonight."

Tom, with character: "We must bless the dice! Pray to the dice gods!"
 (Everyone Laughs)

Tom, with no character: "We must bless the dice! Pray to the dice gods!"
 DM: "Stop interrupting the game, Tom."
 
And I'm dead serious about how that goes down.

Some of those reading this might be staring and going, "Whoa, no way," but I'd bet a good sum of money at least half of those reading this are nodding and saying, "Uh-huh." Because they've been there and done that, and seen it done (and had it done to them).

What I think we can garner from the first page of discussion is that there are obviously good OOC topics and methods, and bad OOC topics and methods, and it varies with the group; but there's also these weird assumptions and rules that go with the territory, that many groups and their players have and carry around with them, which aren't so rational when examined later.

They're accepted, because most people don't examine their play like this: they don't have examples of contrasting behavior to examine, and they aren't thinking about examining behavior in contrast to the same. It's just "obvious" what "the correct" behavior is at any given moment, even when it is dysfunctional and bizzare in retrospect and examination.

This isn't really what Ron is referring to when he talks about people's training getting in the way of talking about play, during play, but its a symptom caused by the same source.

All this is illustration of that supporting culture, the idealization of "what good games are like" and "what good players are like," which gives rise to the problem of discussion about the game, during play, being labelled as bad or distracting from the experience of play.

I don't think this is simply a "designer's notes" phenomenon, either, since the games really aren't meant to be played like that. This seems to be an unintentional side-effect brought on by subconscious weighting in the text and in the indoctrination of players to the gaming culture at large. I reference Chris' post as to (perhaps) the reason for this occurence, or at least as a mirror of the situation in other venues.

[xiombarg]

Amen, Raven. I've gamed in Pittsburgh, Iowa, North Carolina, Maryland, and DC, and at various cons throughout the East Coast and the Midwest. The only region I can't speak for is the West Coast, and I've seen exactly what you're talking about.

The tightening down on OOC chatter happens everywhere. Hell, when things started to go south in my D&D game last year, I found myself, as DM, telling people not to talk unless their character was there, as a knee-jerk way of dealing with the nasty social situation that was coming out. Immediately after the session, I realized how bad a mistake that really was, but I realized I was falling back on an old "DM technique" that you see all over the place.

It comes down a problem that we talk about on the Forge a lot: People gaming with people that they wouldn't be friends with otherwise. Wanting to clamp on OOC chatter is a way of trying to avoid that problem, by trying to get everyone to concentrate on the game, rather than the fact that they actually don't like each other that much OOC, which becomes more apparant the more they interact outside the game. Of course, it doesn't really work, but it does tend to extend the life of the game somewhat, by repressing the dysfunction until it explodes IC somehow. Doing that to deal with a distruptive player is a way of avoiding doing the adult thing and talking it out, or kicking 'em out of the game. By making "deep immersion" the "goal" of "true roleplaying," you can feel good about yourself while you engage in this sort of dysfunctional behavior.

(That said, sometimes too much OOC chatter can be a problem -- but that's something that should be negotiated, not clamped down a priori by force. It's just that immersion is often used as an escuse for avoiding frank discussion.)

[iambenlehman]

I, personally, am sick hearing responses that boil down to, "Oh that NEVER happens," or "Gee, that must be some FREAK thing that only ever happened to you," regarding how the groups I've been a part of functioned. It's incredibly insulting and is a complete belittling of mine own and others' similar experiences, so, really, please knock it off.

BL>  Funny, so am I.  But, if you'll see above, nearly all of my experiences gaming outside of a LARP scene were heavy with OOG chatter.  So, reading your post makes me grit my teeth and want to scream.

I think that the truth of the matter (note that I do not have my 1e D&D books or Tunnels and Trolls books with me as I post this) is that the old, classic books give *no indication at all* of whether out of game chatter is acceptable or not, and each group came to its own conclusions about it.  Thus, some published games (TORG, Planescape, etc.) except OOG chatter as "natural" and some (Usagi Yojimbo, Amber) reject it is "disruptive."  D&D, for better or for worse, was an incomplete game.  We all came to our own conclusions about how it should be played.

yrs--
--Ben