Dethroning the SIS

[Victor Gijsbers]

Introduction

In this post, I will critically discuss the notion of Shared Imagined Space and its relation to Creative Agendas. I will claim that:

* The Shared Imagined Space (SIS) need not be at the centre of roleplaying.
* How important the SIS is to a Creative Agenda can very anywhere between "extremely important" and "utterly unimportant". As a result, 'conflict' as necessarily involving adversity in the SIS is not necessary for Creative Agendas to be pursued.


The Shared Imagined Space

In the Provisional Glossary, Shared Imagined Space is defined thus:

The fictional content of play as it is established among participants through role-playing interactions.

Other items make it clear that the SIS is the set of events (placed in a recognisable time and space order) which together constitute the imagined game world. Thus, in a typical D&D game, the SIS might contain the event that the party encounters a group of goblins, all the events which transpire during the ensuing combat, etcetera. By extension, we might also say that facts about the fictional game-world which are not events are still a part of the SIS. That Arthus is King, that John is the strongest fighter in the party, that getting a knife through your heart kills you - all of these may be elements of the SIS.

Still, there are many things which are not part of the SIS, for the Shared Imagined Space contains only the chains of events and the other facts which together constitute the material reality of the imagined world. Examples of aspects of playing an RPG which are not in the SIS are easy to think up: the recognition by other players of your personal strategic or story-telling qualities; the thematic development which we interpret into the events in the SIS; the symbolic meaning of the events in the SIS; and so forth. I propose that these elements can be divided between two categories: that of interpretation, and that of reality. Adding the SIS, this makes for a total of three categories in which to group elements of roleplaying:

1. The Shared Imagined Space is, as already mentioned, the space which contains the events and other facts about the game world that the group agrees on.
2. The Shared Interpretation is the interpretation of the contents of the SIS in so far as this is shared by all participants. If a group of players is addressing a Premise through playing out events in the SIS, they must also have a shared interpretation of those events; they must agree on how these events address the Premise, and what the Theme reached at the end is. If they do agree, their common interpretation is the Shared Interpretation.
3. Reality contains the players, their attitudes towards one another, andsuch real-life awards as prestige and recognition.

An assumption which as far as I can judge governs quite some thought here at the Forge is that roleplaying is really about what happens in the SIS, and a roleplaying system can be defined as that which makes things happen in the SIS. I disagree. It is not only feasible, it is a simple fact if roleplaying that what happens in the SIS can be much less important than what happens in the SI or reality; and there are actual roleplaying systems which are concerned with directly manipulating the SI or reality, without exerting all of their influence through the SIS. (These comments may be seen as an attack on the notion that "System is time".) We will look at several examples of roleplaying where the SIS is relatively unimportant in the next section.


The SIS's variable importance

We will now look at some examples, and see that the SIS's importance can vary drastically.

1. Imagine first a group of Simulationists who wish to use a realistic, highly complex combat system in order to simulate small battles. "What happens if three swordsmen rush those three archers?", might be a question they'd like to find an answer to. This is a question about the SIS, and what is important is what happens in the SIS. Or, closer to most actual roleplaying, assume that a group of players wishes to tell tales about being a vampire in a certain highly worked out setting, and wish to experience the events in which their characters will be involved. Once again, the centre of attention is the SIS - the events are what it's all about.

2. Now imagine a narrativist group adressing the Premise "All higher culture is based on cruelty". They will create a set of events in the SIS, but what they will really be concerned with lies on a higher level: the SI. Although they may wish to impose some standards of consistency and believability on the SIS, their game is all about creating a satisfying Shared Interpretation. Now it is important to notice that the contents of the SIS do not determine the SI. Two different sets of events may give rise to the same thematic interpretation, and one set of events may give rise to different interpretations. Therefore, the contents of the SIS are of secondary importance at best, being only a tool for creating an SI. Part of creating the SI may not take place through establishing the contents of the SIS; the SIS is not the only tool. Part of fulfilling my Creative Agenda may bypass the SIS entirely.

3. Or imagine a gamist group playing a tournament game. Here the SIS is definitely only a tool. In chess, one normally does not care overly much about the exact sequence of moves on the board; one cares about the result. And in this tournament game, one does not really care about the SIS, one cares about winning and getting prestige, money, chicks, POWER!!... uhm, I got carried away there. The point is, once again, that achieving the CA may not depend on what happens in the SIS. For example, if I get tournament points for knowing the rules well, or for giving vivid descriptions, or by rolling a die which does not dictate things to happen in the SIS, then I am fulfilling my CA without the SIS intervening in any way.

4. Finally, let me discuss Ethan Greer's game Chamber. A quick synopsis: you play a torturer. All players take turns describing how they tortured an innocent victim, trying to outdo each other in heinousness. This game - when understood properly - is not about the events taking place in the SIS at all. It is about descending into the dark depths of your own mind, the places you hide from both yourself and others, and showing them - to yourself and others. Indeed, there is no SIS in the normal sense. In a normal RPG, a player imagines an event, proposes it as a content of the SIS,and this is either accepted or rejected. In Chamber, only the imagining is important, because the very point of the game is that you divulge what you are capable of imagining. Here then we have a game which proves that the SIS as commonly understood need not be a part of a roleplaying game. because some Creative Agendas can be pursued without using it. (I think Chamber also shows that there are CAs not captured by the GNS trichotomy, but will not argue for that here.)

This establishes that the SIS can be anything between very important and very unimportant. That means that system need not 'be time'. It also means that CAs do not need Conflicts - as defined by Valamir in this recent thread - to become apparent. Valamir writes:

What does it take to realize the potential Conflict in a situation?

1) At least one player must be interested in the situation and committed to seeing the situation change. The engine for that change in most role-playing games is the player's character.

2) The situation must involve adversity. The change that the player desires to see occur cannot happen without effort or sacrifice. Typically it is the player's character that experiences the effort or sacrifice.

3) For a Conflict to be relevant there must be consequences that alter the SiS for both success and failure. Whatever the outcome, once a Character gets involved, the SiS will be changed. There must be something at stake.

[...]

Creative Agenda is the response of a player to a situation that matters. Conflict is the word given to a situation that matters to distinguish it from situations that don't matter.

I believe the previous discussion has shown this last claim about Creative Agendas to be false. Not all instances of pursuing a Creative Agenda must use the SIS as an intermediary. Addressing Premise, gaining prestige, divulging the power of your imagination, and many other CAs can be pursued without adding elements to the SIS. This is not to say that people pursuing these CAs can do without an SIS; it is to say that their CA can be largely autonomous from the SIS.


Conclusion

Recapitulating, I have argued that:
* Roleplaying is not merely concerned with the SIS, but also with the SI and reality.
* The SIS need not be the most important part of play.
* Some CAs make the roleplayer very dependent on the SIS, but others make the SIS retreat to the background.

More can be said about the way in which the CAs hang together with my proposed division of the RPG-space into SIS, SI and reality, but I leave that for another occassion. For now, I'm very interested in your thoughts about the issues raised above.[/url][/quote]

[Sean]

Victor -

I agree with you for the most part in terms of the facts you cite, for whatever that's worth. I will say that most of what you talk about as 'reality' is handled in the Big Model as Social Contract, and it's not obvious to me why it's essential for you to move towards that most broad of words. I suppose not all player emotions are 'social contract' issues and part of what you're pointing out is the importance of player motives and emotions - is that why the specter of reality rises in your post?

I will say though that 'dominates quite a bit of forge thought' - aside from the usual caveats about this being a community of theorists who don't agree with each other about everything, etc. - may be in response to the recent lines of inquiry. Obsession with SiS is big lately, but hardly anyone was talking about it six months ago, it seems to me. Many here do put the social interactions of roleplaying front and center in their analysis.

But in terms of what you're talking about, one of my favorite examples, Great Ork Gods, is a good case study. The real interaction of that game is at the player-level, and the SiS is mostly a medium for that, though by no means a completely inessential one. This is different from the dominant experience in many other RPGs, where what happens in the SiS tends to dominate what's happening in human interactions, though it need not always. (Ron's discussions of the various Hard Core forms of Gamism - dysfunctional Turnin' and Calvinball at least - are pretty clear cases where events at the player/Social Contract/reality level start to swamp out the importance of the SiS for play.)

Chamber sounds Gam-facilitating to me the way you describe it - the constraint and therefore challenge being your own sense of the horrible.

Best,

Sean

[Marco]

One problem that I can see with this is that for Shared Interpertation to be actually interperting anything something must have happened in the game (SiS).

If the statement about cruelty and culture is made for the players because of and during an RPG session (as opposed to, say, a TV playing in the next room) then it has to be tied (I think) to some series of events which only happen as a product of SiS*.

Now: I beleive it's quite possible for two Nar players to not address or experience the same Premise and that's sort of what you're talking about here, I think. The Interpertation of the SiS could, IMO, well be different or have different aspects for two players.

But if I think some statement was made in the game according to someone, then I  think it'll have to be because of some conflict that was resolved (some adversity faced) in the SiS. It might be the statement that's most important to me (meta-game over game)--but the SiS is, IMO, the foundation for any such interpertation.

-Marco
* Or because of their attempted introduction into SiS if some key action was attempted and failed to be accepted but made a statement anyway--but this is an edge condition, IMO.

[Valamir]

I think your conclusions are based on some faulty assumptions.

2. The Shared Interpretation is the interpretation of the contents of the SIS in so far as this is shared by all participants. If a group of players is addressing a Premise through playing out events in the SIS, they must also have a shared interpretation of those events; they must agree on how these events address the Premise, and what the Theme reached at the end is. If they do agree, their common interpretation is the Shared Interpretation.

On what basis do you claim this to be so?  It might be.  It might not be.  Why "must" the players agree on any such thing?

If, in fact, they do not NEED to agree on what the Premise is or what the resulting theme is, then there is clearly no NEED for a Shared Interpretation.  There may or may not be such a thing.

The only thing that must be shared is the factual information about the SiS.  Player interpretations of the significance and personal meanings of the elements of the SiS are entirely their own, to be shared or mused upon privately as desired.

Reality contains the players, their attitudes towards one another, andsuch real-life awards as prestige and recognition.

I don't think anyone would disagree with this.  This is why Social Contract is the biggest box of the model.  Everything else, SiS, Exploration, Agenda, Techniques are all contained within the Social Box.  What about this arrangement do you feel your distinction addresses differently?


I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to debunk.  You seem to be making some claims about "Forge views" that you wish to disprove, but I can't quite put my finger on what you think your disproving.  No one has ever said anything about the SiS being the sum total of all that is roleplaying.  So I'm not sure what your attempting to prove.


Further I don't see where any of your contra examples do anything to support your case.  None of your examples exist independently without relying on an SiS.  And nothing of consequence is going on in your examples that is not immediately dependent on the SiS.  

2. Now imagine a narrativist group adressing the Premise "All higher culture is based on cruelty". They will create a set of events in the SIS, but what they will really be concerned with lies on a higher level: the SI. Although they may wish to impose some standards of consistency and believability on the SIS, their game is all about creating a satisfying Shared Interpretation. Now it is important to notice that the contents of the SIS do not determine the SI. Two different sets of events may give rise to the same thematic interpretation, and one set of events may give rise to different interpretations. Therefore, the contents of the SIS are of secondary importance at best, being only a tool for creating an SI. Part of creating the SI may not take place through establishing the contents of the SIS; the SIS is not the only tool. Part of fulfilling my Creative Agenda may bypass the SIS entirely.

I don't follow this logic at all.  Without the SiS there is no roleplaying going on here period.  There is no Interpretation, shared or otherwise period.  There is nothing for players to interpret.

Will the players derive some interpretation from the SiS that may have some personal meaning for them?  Perhaps.  If they do will such interpretation be influenced heavily by all of the personal life experiences that individual brings to the table?  Of course.  Everything happening at the table is already happening within the Social Context of the group, so that's already been accounted for.

There is nothing to interpret, there is no premise being addressed, there is no theme, there is no narrativist agenda without the SiS.

3. Or imagine a gamist group playing a tournament game. Here the SIS is definitely only a tool. In chess, one normally does not care overly much about the exact sequence of moves on the board; one cares about the result. And in this tournament game, one does not really care about the SIS, one cares about winning and getting prestige, money, chicks, POWER!!... uhm, I got carried away there. The point is, once again, that achieving the CA may not depend on what happens in the SIS. For example, if I get tournament points for knowing the rules well, or for giving vivid descriptions, or by rolling a die which does not dictate things to happen in the SIS, then I am fulfilling my CA without the SIS intervening in any way.

Again, I'm seeing alot of mental gymnastics here.

Every aspect of this comes back to the SiS.  If you get tournament points for knowing the rules well, big deal.  Knowing the rules is not roleplaying.  I can sit here and tell you in some detail how combat in Pendragon works...you might be impressed by my recitation...but our discussion is not roleplaying, and whatever joy I get out of your respect for my Pendragon-fu is not a Creative Agenda.

For "knowledge of the rules" to be a part of a Gamist agenda they must have been applied during the act of actual roleplaying.  That means they must relate to some event or situation that arose during play for which my superior knowledge then gives me an advantage.  In other words, it derives from the elements of the SiS.

The SiS is the gameboard of the competition.  I can no more fulfill my Gamist Creative Agenda by circumventing the SiS, then you could fulfill your Competitive Chess Agenda by knocking over your opponents pieces and claiming victory.  A victory in chess means nothing if it is not achieved on the game board, using the game pieces, and abiding by the game rules.  In roleplaying, the SiS is the game board.  Setting, character, situation, and color are the game pieces, and system is the game's rules.  There is no Gamist Agenda without the SiS.

4. Finally, let me discuss Ethan Greer's game Chamber. A quick synopsis: you play a torturer. All players take turns describing how they tortured an innocent victim, trying to outdo each other in heinousness. This game - when understood properly - is not about the events taking place in the SIS at all. It is about descending into the dark depths of your own mind, the places you hide from both yourself and others, and showing them - to yourself and others. Indeed, there is no SIS in the normal sense. In a normal RPG, a player imagines an event, proposes it as a content of the SIS,and this is either accepted or rejected. In Chamber, only the imagining is important, because the very point of the game is that you divulge what you are capable of imagining. Here then we have a game which proves that the SIS as commonly understood need not be a part of a roleplaying game. because some Creative Agendas can be pursued without using it. (I think Chamber also shows that there are CAs not captured by the GNS trichotomy, but will not argue for that here.)

As far as Chamber goes, before using it as an example, you'd have to show that it is even actually a role playing game.  In some regards one could easily consider it a parlour game along the same lines as Truth or Dare, or Scrupples, or trying to illicit a scared reaction by telling ghost stories.  

But in any event you still haven't circumvented the SiS.  Anything I divulge as being part of my character's torturing past is part of the SiS.  Any reaction you have to anything I say is a reaction you have to the SiS.  Once again, the SiS is the vehicle for the roleplaying.  It is absolutely the intermediary.  There is no way around that.  

When you say "In a normal RPG, a player imagines an event, proposes it as a content of the SIS,and this is either accepted or rejected. In Chamber, only the imagining is important, because the very point of the game is that you divulge what you are capable of imagining." it appears that you are trying to distinguish Chamber as not having an SiS because you aren't seeing the player's statements as a series of proposals and acceptances.  That's incorrect.  System is the means by which elements enter and are altered the SiS.

You have not identified a game without an SiS.  You've only identified a game with a non standard system for altering and editing the SiS.

I believe the previous discussion has shown this last claim about Creative Agendas to be false. Not all instances of pursuing a Creative Agenda must use the SIS as an intermediary. Addressing Premise, gaining prestige, divulging the power of your imagination, and many other CAs can be pursued without adding elements to the SIS.

I don't think you've shown anything of the sort.  In fact, I think that every example you've used so far can be shown to indeed be using the SiS as an intermediary.

I also don't see what your motivation is for trying to "debunk" the concept of SiS.

SiS and the manipulation of SiS via System is the one thing that distinguishes roleplaying games from other social activities.  Remove the SiS and System as defining elements and you are left including every conversation between two people, every sporting event, every poetry reading, every improv night at the local club as a roleplaying game.

The reason why none of those things are roleplaying is because none of those things have a Shared Imaginary Space in which System is used to manipulate Situations between Setting and Character as constrained by Color.

[Victor Gijsbers]

Hello people, thanks for your responses. Let me respond to Sean's "Reality"/"Social Contract" issue first, and then turn to the post of Valamir.

The reason I used 'reality' and not 'social contract' is that I don't really see how things like how much prestige I give you, or how many tokens I have lying in front of me, or whatever, have anything to do with a Contract, social or not. In addition, 'reality' is the real equivalent of the imagniary SIS - a Contract, on the other hand, is not a space of events. However, if the term Social Contract is in use on the Forge meaning all those things which I do not easily associate with it, then I will change my terminology accordingly.

Valamir, let me try to get my answer to you in as a coherent a form as possible. I will start out by saying that I have not tried to prove that there can be roleplaying without an SIS (of some kind). If you show me that there can be no Gamist Agenda without an SIS, or no Narrativist Agenda, or whatever - well, you are not contradicting anything I claim. Nor is my recognition that there is something beyond the SIS (such as 'reality' or 'Social Contract' or whatever you like) meant to be a new insight. So what do I claim? (I try to present my case a bit differently below, hoping that it will also improve clarity.)

* Not all significant moves in roleplaying are proposals about the contents of the SIS or accapetations/rejections of such proposals.
* Even stronger, some significant moves in roleplaying may not influence the contents of the SIS at all.
* System is that which governs the making of significant moves in roleplaying. By the above, system is not limited to governing the establishment of events in the SIS.
* Creative Agendas can be seen at work in any significant move in roleplaying, including those which do not influence the contents of the SIS.
* Thus players may pursue their Creative Agenda by making moves which do not involve changing the contents of the SIS, and may even be highly or completely autonomous.

(On the notion of 'significant move': I'm trying to get to express something like 'Technique'. Unfortunately for me, Technique is defined by the Glossary as: "Specific procedures of play which, when employed together, are sufficient to introduce fictional characters, places, or events into the Shared Imagined Space." Since I'm talking about 'techniques' which do not introduce elements into the SIS, I can't use this term. Of course that's just my point: the current vocabulary is biased towards the SIS as that through which all roleplaying takes place, that through which all CAs are pursued.)

If I am right, this 'disproves' - among other things - the definition of 'System' in the Provisional Glossary: "The means by which imaginary events are established during play, including character creation, resolution of imaginary events, reward procedures, and more. It may be considered to introduce fictional time into the Shared Imagined Space." It would also 'disprove' any claim that Creative Agendas can only be pursued through the manipulation of events in the SIS, or can only be recognised when certain situations arise in the SIS. What I am arguing is that SIS need not be so central to either system or the pursuing of Creative Agendas.


I tried to show this - but my examples may not have been very clear, in retrospect - by showing that significant moves in roleplaying exist which do not change the contents of the SIS. I further tried to show that CAs may be pursued with these moves.

My narrativist example was meant to show that because the Shared Interpretation is not determined by the contents of the SIS - one and the same SIS can be intepreted in different ways - it is possible to make a significant move which furthers my Narrativist Agenda without being a move that influences the SIS. Imagine a system which allows me to spend coins in either of two ways: (1) to influence the SIS, or (2) to postulate a symbolic meaning of an element of the SIS. So I might use a coin and say "Two giant minotaurs are rushing towards us through the hallway". But then someone else can spend a coin and say: "These minotaurs symbolise the violent side of our animal instincts". I hope you will agree with me that both are significant moves governed by the system, and that both can be used to pursue a Narrativist Agenda, but that only the first actually changes the contents of the SIS. The second changes the contents of the SI. If you do agree with me on this, than you have already conceded almost all of my points to me. See that the SIS is still necessary in this kind of play, but neither system, nor 'techniques', nor the pursuing of CAs, is restricted to moves that influence the SIS.

I admit that my Chamber example is a bit incoherent, because I did not have clearly in mind what I wanted to prove with it. As far as I can see, Chamber at the very least proves that conflicts (in the sense of your recent topic, as situations in the SIS with adversity, risk, etcetera) are not necessary for pursuing a Creative Agenda, or making it recognisable. I suggest that I can pursue a CA with Chamber, and recognise that people playing it are pursuing a certain CA - but there will never be anything like a 'conflict' in the game. But I think that Chamber furthermore shows us that the stage of acceptance or rejection of proposed elements of the SIS need not be central to a roleplaying game and can indeed be bypassed. Whether the scenes of Chamber are connected by players saying "Yes, and meanwhile in the room next door I was doing..." or by them saying "No, that's not cruel enough for Cain the Chain, what actually happened is..." is not at all of interest. Whether a story is accepted as part of the SIS or not is inconsequential - one might even say that the question of rejection or acceptation does not exist within Chamber. Now you replied:

it appears that you are trying to distinguish Chamber as not having an SiS because you aren't seeing the player's statements as a series of proposals and acceptances. That's incorrect. System is the means by which elements enter and are altered the SiS.

But as far as I can see, that is defeating me by definition, not by argument. I dispute the sense of the definition of system by giving a counter-example, and then you tell me that my example is "incorrect" because it does not conform to the definition. I'd rather have that you'd discuss my interpretation of Chamber, and show where I'm wrong. (But let me point out again that most of what I tried to argue in this thread is already contained in my example of the symbolistic-game discussed above.)


Please let me know whether this presentation has cleared up my intentions and arguments. And of course, try to shoot me down if you wish.

[lumpley]

Victor, this is good stuff.

I agree with you, practically.  I disagree only about definitions, not about substance at all.

In the big model, System is defined to apply only to Exploration - that is, creating events in the SIS.  But it's undisputed that other kinds of conversations - your SI, plus how the group decides what to get on the pizza, plus various kinds of non-event input into the SIS - can and do contribute to the group's ongoing fulfillment of their Creative Agenda.

I hope you will agree with me that both are significant moves governed by the system, and that both can be used to pursue a Narrativist Agenda, but that only the first actually changes the contents of the SIS. The second changes the contents of the SI. If you do agree with me on this, than you have already conceded almost all of my points to me. See that the SIS is still necessary in this kind of play, but neither system, nor 'techniques', nor the pursuing of CAs, is restricted to moves that influence the SIS.

I concede all your points except that both moves are governed by System!  This move: "someone else can spend a coin and say: 'These minotaurs symbolise the violent side of our animal instincts'" is CA-significant but not governed by System.

It's very strange to me to see such mechanical rules for conversations other than Exploration.  Especially where they (apparently) share currency.  I'd be really interested to see that idea developed, in another thread probably.  Is it an existing game you're referring to?

-Vincent

[Valamir]

That's much clearer Victor thanks.

* Not all significant moves in roleplaying are proposals about the contents of the SIS or accapetations/rejections of such proposals.

I don't have a clear grasp of the sort of things you are viewing as non SiS significant moves, so its hard for me to agree or disagree with the possibility that there might be such things that 1) don't involve the contents of the SiS, and 2) are still part of roleplaying and not just part of the social activity that goes on side by side with roleplaying (like sharing movie anecdotes or ordering pizza does).

So far, I haven't see you use any examples that couldn't be seen as being about the SiS and I think perhaps this is due to your perception of what is meant by the SiS being much narrower than mine.

With your example of the minotaurs for instance you offer two ideas: first the presence of the minotaurs and second that the minotaurs are there to symbolize our animal instincts.


Here I'd have to agree with Vincent that I've never seen a game which attempted such overt manipulation of symbology using game mechanics.  But assuming there is such a game, that its functional, and that one could actually consider the activity of playing it to be roleplaying I'll accept the possibility.

You want to define the action of introducing the minotaurs as using system to manipulate the SiS, while the action of applying the symbology is using system to manipulate...something else.  The rest of your bullet points derive from that distinction.

But at this point I'm not convinced that there is "something else".  Or more specifically I think that whatever that "something else" is, is already contained within the concept of the Shared Imaginary Space.

In other words both the minotaurs existance and their overt symbology are elements within the SiS.  


The meanings and symbologies of elements in the SiS are typically left to percolate in our own minds...what has been called the Individual Imaginary Space.  This is where I might think to myself "heh, minotaurs, how appropriate.  Its like a manifestation of our animal side..."

But if I say that out loud then there are 1 of 3 possible responses.  Either
1) I get rejected "dude, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a Minotaur is just a bull headed man with an axe coming to kill you" or
2) I get nods of acceptance "yeah, how appropriate is that, pretty cool" or
3) I get silence and no response at all, which could be rejection or acceptance depending on the social parameters of the group.

At that point we have a clear case of system at work.  I vocalized a proposal that was either rejected or accepted (or potentially countered).

But here I would argue that it is precisely the SiS that is being altered.  Assuming my proposal is accepted, then each and every player at the table has a new found understanding of the nature of those minotaurs as they exist within our SiS.  Before I opened my mouth they were just bull headed men with axes coming to kill us.  Afterwards they are symbols of our own animal natures.  That is definitely a change to the SiS because it colors how we as players will view and respond to these minotaurs going forward.

If there is some in game mechanic that allows us to do this formally then that is a rule that simply becomes (or doesn't become) part of our ongoing system.


So in conclusion I find myself in full agreement with your notion that there are these other things going on.  But in full disagreement (at least at this point) that these other things are going on outside of the SiS.  If you were to accept that these other things are part of and included in the SiS, then I think much of your disagreement with the current definitions would vanish.

[M. J. Young]

I think I'm picking up what Ralph said. That is, I think what you're calling the Shared Interpretation (SI) is already part of what I'm thinking of as the Shared Imagined Space (SIS)--it's just never been examined as such before (unless this is part of Chris Lerich's ideas about role playing games as ritual space, which it seems to me does connect here somehow).

My impression is that if you change the meaning or understanding or symbology or literary function of something within the shared imaged space, you've made a change in that space itself. That change might amount to something analogous to "invisible blue tags which hover in the air above these objects labeling them as part of this other idea", but if we're all aware of the presence of those tags, they're part of the space.

I'm not saying that it's not valuable to recognize meaning and interpretation as aspects of that which is created; I am saying that they remain aspects of that which is created, and therefore part of that space. It isn't necessary that the characters are aware of the change, or even that it is a change that is real within the game world. Since that space exists only in our imaginations, all that matters is that it is an idea which within our imaginations is connected to the objects or events we are imagining.

I think that recognizing the possibility of "interpretive glosses" as something that can be manipulated by system without changing events or objects imagined in any clear game-world-related way is a valuable point, and that we might need to revise definitions to recognize this aspect (or at least to avoid excluding it, as you suggest the current definitions appear to do by their focus on in game objects and events). As has been said, I'm prepared to be persuaded that these are not part of the shared imagined space, but at present they look like it to me. They may be the best example of "color" as an element of exploration that I've seen, although that may be more because I have trouble with color myself.

--M. J. Young

[Alan]

Hi all,

I think I actually approached this idea of the separation of interpretation from content in a post a few months ago - but I can't find it.

My idea was that in Ron's Big Model, shared interpretation is part of the feedback loop that leads to another iteration of change in the shared imagined space.  As such, it's part of System - how additions are agreed on.  Now, just like the fantasy content of the game, the standards of interpretation are shared as well (at least in a coherent game).  

In Ron's graphic ( http://indie-rpgs.com/_articles/bigmodelpic.pdf ), you can see System is at the same level as Exploration.  

So Exploration contains several bodies of shared imagined content that have different functions, but which interact with each other:
- shared standards of interpretation (a part of System, including Rewards)
- shared methods of process  (the other part of System)
- shared content ( Situation = Character + Setting )

(Find Big Model glossary at http://indie-rpgs.com/_articles/glossary.html )

[Adam Dray]

I think I'm picking up what Ralph said. That is, I think what you're calling the Shared Interpretation (SI) is already part of what I'm thinking of as the Shared Imagined Space (SIS)--it's just never been examined as such before (unless this is part of Chris Lerich's ideas about role playing games as ritual space, which it seems to me does connect here somehow).

I would go so far as to say that SIS doesn't exist. It's a nice ideal, but there is not a single place in which we share imaginary space. It's a goal that is never fully achieved. At least it's not something that any player can know unless he's playing alone (his interpretation of the SIS is the only one, and is therefore authoritative). Add a second player and the SIS is always an unknown.

Shared Interpretation doesn't quite capture (what I feel is) the truth, either.

Each person has his own interpretation of what the state of the SIS is but he can never be sure. He can query other players to clear up misconceptions but even then may misinterpret the answers he receives.

This is important because it seems that one measure of success of a System is its effectiveness in getting everyone's interpretation of the SIS to match. Many aspects of System are about establishing authority and preventing/settling disputes about different players' interpretations of the SIS.

Further, Conflict (which on first glance seems to be absent from the Glossary) seems to be definable as any question about which the players do not readily agree on the answer. Thus the topic of "meaningful conflict" is dodged: the meaning comes from Creative Agenda as players interpret and agree upon the SIS.

[Ron Edwards]

You guys make me tired.

"There's an orc!"

"Is he big and ugly?"

"Nah, small and sneaky."

"My guy readies his Charm spell!"

If for some ungodly reason a person can't see that the two speakers above are sharing their imaginings with one another, and using the sharing as a means of continuing the activity, then I dunno what to tell you.

Come up with whatever name you like. I'm calling it Shared Imagined Space.

Best,
Ron

[Adam Dray]

Assuming that was in reply to my message, do you intend to dismiss me and use the "you're obviously stupid if you don't get it" argument to make your point?

I am not saying that some kind of sharing isn't going on.

I am saying that the idea of a single space in which "the truth" about what everyone believes the shared space is cannot exist. We can get close to agreeing what that space is, but we'll always have different interpretations.

Usually, it isn't a problem. The differences are often easily corrected (as your "big and ugly" orc example demonstrates). Sometimes the differences in interpretation continue for longer and a player becomes frustrated that his personal SIS isn't the same as another player's (often the GM's). For example, based on a false impression that orcs are usually big and ugly, a player builds his orc-hater character around skills that deal with big and ugly orcs instead of small and sneaky orcs. Months later, after investing in the character, the player learns his interpretation of the SIS was not the same as the GM's and is forced to find a way to reconcile the difference.

I still think SIS is a useful concept to discuss. I also think that discussing how different players always have slightly different interpretations of the SIS has some value. First, it supports the role of a GM as a player with more SIS authority than other players (someone's interpretation is more "right" than others). Second, it suggests that a game designer should look for ways through System to reduce these kinds of interpretation problems.

[Valamir]

Hey Adam.  Certainly not trying to be dismissive, but at the risk of being overly blunt...what exactly is the point you're trying to make?

I don't think you'll find a single person in the entire history of SiS discussions who, in the process of making use of the SiS concept in those discussions isn't already in full agreement with everything you've said.

In fact, in my opening comments on SiS in my essay, I say essentially the same thing.  That barring mind melding technique there can be no unified Shared Imaginary Space, and therefor the SiS must be taken to mean that portion of everyone's Individual Imaginary Space that is held in common among the group.

Is there some point in some discussion that has led you to think we think otherwise?

[Adam Dray]

Bluntness is good. =)

I'll go read your essay since I've obviously missed some stuff. Apologies to everyone if I've only rehashed old thoughts.

I'm not certain that "that portion of everyone's Individual Imaginary Space that is held in common among the group" is the way everyone uses it, and I need to think some more about the usefulness of that definition.

Thanks for the pointers, Ralph.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Adam,

You are not being dismissed. My comments are addressed to the thread at large; when I want to critique one person's input, I'm always 100% clear about who and what.

I also think your points about what I've been calling Shared Imagined Space are valid. That's just it, though - the "it" is an actual communicative phenomena.

To me, it doesn't matter if the individuals' imaginings are identical and agree that any expectation thereof is pretty silly. I'm really not sure how that interpretation started getting bandied around and suspect it was a red herring from the start.

What matters is that whatever they're imagining gets shared - the lines of communication and mutually-reinforcing influences upon one another are the key, not the endpoint-results at the individual-experience level.

It seems to me extremely clear that for such reinforcement to occur, the communication has to be effective and enjoyable, which requires some degree of consistency (not identity) among the imaginings.

Even if you ("you" being anyone reading this) imagine Black Pete with a hooked nose, and I imagine him with a once-straight-now-broken one, and we never during ten years of role-playing together happened to mention his nose ... what matters is that we both can communicate and enthuse about Black Pete on a powerful platform of what we shared about what we imagined, i.e. "what happened" fictionally, and how that affected one another as we went.

Best,
Ron