Internal cause and Premise

[M. J. Young]

The confusion arises from failure to distinguish "internal causality" or "verisimilitude" as an almost indispensible technique in simulationism versus as the definitional factor in simulationism.

I think I can credit Ralph for really bringing that into focus. Simulationists are out to learn something. Whether it's by experimentation or experience, they want to know what it would be like. In order for that result to be valid (or, as Mike would have it, to seem valid), all other variables must be held constant--and that means that the rules must apply consistently at all times, whatever those rules are, so that the actions we take can be adjudicated by those rules.

That doesn't mean that internal causality equals simulationism. It means that simulationism relies more heavily on internal causality than narrativism or gamism.

Note, however, that the dial has to be pretty high for gamism, too. The player can only really organize his tactics and strategies based on the assumption that the rules are going to be consistent. It doesn't matter what the rules are, as long as they are reliable. For example, players in a D&D world can't create gunpowder; but they might attempt to create a highly flammable refined oil, contain it in sealed pottery spheres with adequate air for oxidation and a wick, and attempt to use these as explosives. If it's possible for a barrel of oil to forcibly explode when fired, then it must also be possible to use such an explosion tactically; if it is not possible to create such an explosion, then it  can't happen by accident. Thus the gamist is within his rights to expect that exploding barrels of oil provide a tactical weapon if they are a hazard in any other context. That's exactly because he expects a certain level on the "internal causality/verisimilitude" dial.

Narrativism is not different in this regard, really. Most narrativists require a certain minimum level on that dial. There may be more variation from group to group regarding what is the acceptable level, but whether it's high or low is not what defines whether it's narrativist. It doesn't become simulationist because of high internal causality. Internal causality is a dial, and one of the adjustable restraints within which play occurs. That it almost always must be high for simulationist discovery to occur does not mean that simulationist discovery is always the player agendum when it's high.

That's a standard confusion. I hope this clarifies it.

--M. J. Young

[John Kim]

I don't know how long I'd last in the situation where I can't address premise because of internal consistency. Can you give me an example of how that could happen?

With the wrong system (in the Lumpley Principle sense) it could. The key antagonist driving the moral conflict could contract a fatal disease as a result of a mandatory weekly health check roll and die, trivially resolving the conflict, for instance. Or the player-characters could, as a result of a chain of plausible consequences for their actions, all end up in those jail cells you mentioned, and the players expect to then start playing out prison life, for all that you regard it as unplayable.

This is an old Dramatism vs Simulationism debate from rgfa, and I think Lee addressed this pretty well in his thread on http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12351">Some Myths about Virtualism. I'll address your second example first:

The "jail time" case has nothing to do with internal causality.  This just an extension of the old line: "Realism means that you've got to play out your trip to the bathroom round by round."  Which is nonsense.  There is nothing about internal cause which requires you to play out everything at the same level of detail.  Now, maybe the players want to play out prison life.  But it is no less virtual to follow internal cause to the time years later when they get out of prison, or perhaps play other characters, or many other choices.

The death-from-disease is indeed a result from internal causality.  And I agree that unexpected and/or random death in a game can indeed be terrible for dramatic timing and structure.  This is the rgfa Threefold split of Virtualism and Dramatism.  However, I'm not convinced that it can prevent address of premise.  Death from disease is no more and no less meaningful than violent death, in my opinion.  It doesn't end moral questions or remove meaning from the narrative.  Nor does the fact that the death resulted from a die roll make the death "meaningless" any more than any other die roll event.  However, at least traditionally GNS Narrativism has included many dice-using and even strict follow-the-dice systems.

[Gordon C. Landis]

In my experience, there are certainly varied opinions about exactly how close to "most" plausible we have to hew - and those preferences will matter in terms of game-enjoyment.  But at a fundamental level, even the most "restrictive" plausibility-filter allows, as I think John points out, for an almost limitless number of variations.    

In CA terms, the question is where does the enjoyment of play come from?  It might be just from that art of sifting through the plausability-possibilities and bringing into existence the one that feels right, just (just) because it feels right (given all the givens that you gave for the game at hand).  Does everyone turn to each other and smile "My God, we're going to jail.  For a long, long time."  Sure, it sucks for the characters, sure it leaves the game kinda lost as to what comes next - but dammit, that's what makes sense, that's the way things would work, and aren't we all just incredibly clever upright apes for having figured that out.  Real useful thing, this figuring-it-out stuff.  Glad we didn't muddy it up with too much attention to things like how tough we are or how meaningfull it all is.

Or is that just kind of a foundation, and what really matters is what all this means.  We look at each other and go "Man. we're going to jail - I can work with that.  Prison drama, here we come."  Or "Now we're gonna be ex-cons.  That's got to add an edge to our future interactions - how am I going to use this?"  Not just "What kind of person is this going to make my character," but "How can I use this to continue/alter the point I was developing about [say] authority and rebellion with this character?"  Sure, now you have to include prison in your plans, and some players may get upset over that.  But that's what negotiation (pre-, post-, and intra-game) is all about, right?  How neat, whatever me and my fellow culture-forming primates come up with, we can find ways to make it mean things.  Glad we're using that figure-it-out tool for something, and not getting too far into that "I, I Will Survive" stuff.

(Gamism discussion left out, 'cause hopefully the reader gets the idea by now.  And of course, the point is not that people actually think or say these comments and questions (though they might), but that they demonstrate their attention to such things as play continues.)  

Seems to me that "most plausible" and premise can be compatible - in fact, they usually are.  Sometimes they can get in each others' way, but certainly not as a matter of definition.  Therefore I think I'm with Walt in mostly agreeing with Marco, but a little concerned about the way he phrases his conclusion.  Yes, "Everything must happen in the most likely manner" cannot be the "point" of a Sim game because that rule does not represent a premise-killer."  But if where the juice is coming from is the fact that things do happen in the most likely manner, that means it's not coming from the premise.  Which is a problem for the premise-lovers (perverts - loving a premise!  What kind of sick, twisted - oh, a premise is an idea?  Never mind.)

So - the interference arises when "most probable outcome" becomes the point of play, rather than just something we do (with variations as to what we mean by "most") on the way to premise.  Not because you can't do most-probable and address  premise - you can.  But you can't have both be the point of play.  

Marco, is that compatible with your conclusions?  I'm thinking it might be . . .

Gordon
[EDIT for minor typos]

[contracycle]

But hang on, the starting position is, as I understand it, that the GM can build setting/situation such that it is premise-laden, and the players cannot help but provide some kind of answer to that premise through their actions.

In that case, a character who is to provide such response is offed before sufficient of the exposition can be carried out, then they cannot provide any answer, surely.

I was going to respond to the general case as follows, however.  It may be true that if the GM has a premise in mind, they will interpret the actions of the players as providing an answer, much like the viewer of a movie will see those characters provide an answer.  But this is occurring only in the GM's mind, it seems to me, and the players need not and will not likely be aware of this, nor respond to it in any meaningful sense.  Thus, I don't see this construction as being important - only the GM cares about the premise.  The players will be wholly oblivious, and I don't think it can be said to constitute a significant part of play.

[Marco]

MJ,
My problem with this:

[Snip]
Simulationists are out to learn something.
[Snip]

That's a standard confusion. I hope this clarifies it.

Is that I'm not sure that's a standard answer. I.e. You might be right about that--but, then again, you might not. My interpertation from Ron's post in the other thread says that Sim is "definitionally" defined by some kind of gating-factor to play. Like, if we're doing star trek by the TV-show rules then we exclude input that draws us away from that.

Ron, if you disagree with my paraphrase here, let me know. I'm trying to reconcile what MJ says and what you say--and together they don't work for me. I could see Sim being a combination of the two maybe--but not the same thing. Setting out to learn something seems incompatible with playing with a "point" in the sense of, like, "the point is to create an in-genre story."

What, exactly, is that "out to learn"?

Maybe it's out to learn "what's it like to experience being in a TV show" but I think at that level of hypothetical abstraction we've moved away from something quantifiable.

So, no--I think that might be a "standard answer" but it doesn't clear up my confusion.

Walt, Gordon, and John,
I have to back John here. For one thing, the PC's might very well go to jail in my game--and if the world was disease ridden and people were making health-checks all the time? Yes, a major villain could die off if "the plague got him."

Now, I would think Sauron, for example, has a good HMO--and I wouldn't design a situation where the main antagonist was deathly ill and likely to kick it in the next few weeks (or whatever). That would go against the meta-game aspect of Virtuality (note: I do not say GNS Sim).

But I have run games where a captured NPC, at the mercy of a major villain, tried something that we decided had a 5% chance of working, got that 5%, and made the rescue a non-issue. The other PC's got there and the character was free and waiting for them (and the villain disposed).

Contracycle,
I don't understand what offing the character has to do with anything per se--but, yeah, premature character death could lead to an unsatisfactory game.

In the general case, however, I do not think the players will "respond to it in a meaningful sense"--but this is sort of my point. To an observer:

1. The situation has premise.
2. No input is rejected by the players.
3. The question is answered.
4. It's not Narrativism.

What's missing? I think what's missing is emotional involvement in the game.

-Marco

[M. J. Young]

MJ,
My problem with this:

[Snip]
Simulationists are out to learn something.
[Snip]

That's a standard confusion. I hope this clarifies it.

Is that I'm not sure that's a standard answer. I.e. You might be right about that--but, then again, you might not. My interpertation from Ron's post in the other thread says that Sim is "definitionally" defined by some kind of gating-factor to play. Like, if we're doing star trek by the TV-show rules then we exclude input that draws us away from that.

I might or might not be in step with Ron on this, but I think that a lot of confusion over creative agenda arises from confusing what we want from the game from how we get what we want.

It is easiest to get narrativism from broadly distributed credibility; that doesn't mean that tightly restrained credibility can't be used for narrativist play, only that it's harder to do.

In the same way, it is much easier to get simulationism from tightly controlled verisimilitude, which doesn't mean that you can't get it from looser verisimilitude, but that it's harder to do.


You have to put "what we want from play" in the focus to grasp the creative agendum. The tools we use to get it are often significant in grasping that, but they aren't determinative.

A lot of simulationism is internal, experiential--the virtuality play of just feeling what it would be like to be there. Not all of it is, as some of it is detached, objective understanding of what things are like in that world. Both benefit from high verisimilitude, because (as Ralph observed) holding as many variables constant as possible gives you a more reliable output, whether that output is the "real" experience of being there or the "true" result of the experiment.

Techniques can never be definitional of agendum; they are only supportive or impeding. How they are used can give us clear insight into why they are used, that is, what the players hope to gain from their use. If we're excluding input that draws us away from Star Trek, it isn't because that is definitional of what simulationist play is, but rather because as simulationists we're trying to explore what Star Trek is like on the inside, and any input that doesn't fit Star Trek impedes our ability to do that.

Again, I'm not speaking for Ron on this; this is how I understand simulationism, as that which the player is trying to get from play, and not how he goes about getting it.

--M. J. Young

[Gordon C. Landis]

Marco - I'd peg what's missing as simply involvement (emotional or otherwise) in answering the question, as opposed to "emotional involvement in the game."  If that changes the meaning too much for you, let me know - I'm not trying to rephrase your statement to "force" you to agree with me, I'm rephrasing to see IF you agree with me.   Because other than that, I think I'm with you.  What we'd try and look at when your 5%-escaping NPC pulled his trick is was that (and other situations in the game) a chance to go "cool, that could happen - we pegged it right, applied the system, and now we'll keep ridin' the wave and see where it goes!", or was it an occassion to explore a premise about (say) the nature of heroism - are our efforts to free said NPC less heroic because he freed himself?  Let's consider that - and use the further imagined adventures to develop/reveal those considerations (usual warning: "consider" might seem to imply it only counts if you're conscious/intentional/whatever about those points, but I do not mean to imply that.  What matters is if you demonstrate attention to Story Now or The Dream, not that you are "thinking" one or the other).

Note that both sides (and Gamism, too) are always there, in the situation, regardless of which CA priority applies.  Going Sim doesn't mean we don't even notice that something about heroism might be implied by the way events ocurred, and going Nar doesn't mean we have no awareness of or satisfaction in the way System brought about the situation.  

As far as what "out to learn" means - well, I used the phrase that's been working for me lately in my previous post.  I consider Sim to be using our "figure-it-out" muscle, in a very pure way (even though we can be very baroque in all the details we're stipulating about the nature of the "it" we are figuring out in this particular case).  Nar is the "make-it-mean-things" muscle, which requires figure-it-out but doesn't stay with it.  Game is the I-can-prove-something muscle, again requiring figure-it-out but using the tool in a different way.  Others may not find "out to learn" and my use of "figure-it-out" synonomous, but for me, they pretty much are.

M.J., excellent point on defintional as opposed to supportive or obstructing.  I think the way I've said it is "System Matters; it does not Determine."  And I'd only add the same, usual caveat that "trying to get from play" is defined as which of three basic, quite "naturally" used muscles is being primarily engaged, not that there has to be something which the player is directly thinking "I want to get this out of play."   In fact, that's why I don't like taking what (to me) look like Techniques that people are directly thinking they want (in Virtuality, "I want in-game cause") and making them the same as a CA.

Now, I do think such things are very important, we should talk about 'em more, and that something like Virtuality (also maybe Dramatism?) need some development as Techniques within the Big Theory.  But I fear that unless we keep that different kind of thing called a CA in mind, we lose many of the benefits that identifying those three CA's gained us.  They are not the whole story, by any means, but they are an important piece, that is pervasive across any and all Techniques/Ephemera in use, whereas Techniques (I'm thinking at the moment) don't have the same . . . crepping, oozing "stickyness" of influence that CA does.

Longer than I thought - hope I stayed on-subject,

Gordon

[Marco]

Gordon,

I understand your modification: game to "answering the premise question" and unfortunately, I can't agree. If I could, it would make things simple: the idea of player emotional engagement is right there in the essay.

But I can't. Here's why:

1. Ask Johanathan--a single event is unsuitable for determination of CA. If I could see player enthausiam for an action and know that it was answering the premise question then, hey, I have everything I need for Narrativist CA in one tidy atomic action.

But the fact is, I can't know. I don't know. I don't even know if the player was excited (I know I was--I really think the player was--but I have *no conclusive way to tell.*) And even beyond knowing if the player was excited period, I can say that I've no idea whether the player was excited about premise, or figuring out something, or "winning."

Or all three--it was all right there. If I could tell you the answer, I could atomically determine CA and all would be good with me.

2. The example was to prove that random events could happen in a Nar game. Now, Walt hypothosises a major villain dying from a failed sickness roll as possibly bad for Premise, right?

Well, if such a thing is bad for premise (and I find the proposition reasonable on the face of it), then I don't think a captured character, facing the practical consequences of her sacrafice (the character sacraficed herself to the villain in order to facilitate the rescue of an NPC), is all that different.

So, that might mean we were "playing Sim" since, indeed, it seems such things could--and did--happen in my game. But on closer examination, I don't think so. I think that in a game where everyone makes health-checks all the time, a major villain dying of disease won't interfere with premise. I think that a game that ends with everyone going to jail would probably be considered a downer, but a risk that any Virtualist-Narrativist would be willing to take: because the rewards are worth it (in their opinion).

-Marco

[Marco]

Techniques can never be definitional of agendum; they are only supportive or impeding.

--M. J. Young

This is the case in GNS, yes--but that's just because the model is built that way. In the 3D Model something that is usually consdiered a technique here (at least to some degree) *is* placed in the top level with three agendas roughly analgous to the CA's.

So while that statement may be true for GNS CA's, I don't think that it's necessarily true for a useful taxonomy of player agendas.

-Marco

[Gordon C. Landis]

Marco,

I'm short on time, but . . . understood.  I'm not sure that stuff is an absolute barrier to agreement - I think I can say a little about *possibly* threatening to premise as opposed to a flat-out "bad for premise", and I think the point of not being sure of CA based on one event/reaction is that you become sure (or at least, more sure) as events accumulate  - but I thought there might be problems with the rephrasing.  That's why I asked.  I'll get back to it as soon as I can,

Gordon

[contracycle]

1. The situation has premise.
2. No input is rejected by the players.
3. The question is answered.
4. It's not Narrativism.

What's missing? I think what's missing is emotional involvement in the game.

I think its rather rude and arrogant to assert that engaging with the GM's imposed premise is the only way to exhibit "emotional involvement"; if they, for example, stepped up they would have been emotionally engaged - just not one the issues the GM wants.

[Ron Edwards]

Enough.

Let me worry about who's rude and arrogant. (All on cue now: "You should know!!!" thanks guys)

It's very easy to insert, as a reader, the necessary phrase "emotional involvement of this particular kind" into Marco's point. In fact, we're obliged to do that, otherwise this entire forum will be nothing but a big mass of "but I meant" and "but I meant you meant."

Best,
Ron

[contracycle]

But Ron, the point was that Marco's points do NOT rule out emotional engagement.  They only rule out emotional engagement with PREMISE, specifically, and that does not rule out emotional engagement of all varieties.

[Ron Edwards]

Then make your point cleanly without slinging around judgments about who's rude and arrogant.

I'm gonna name names: Marco, Raven (greyorm), and Gareth (contracycle) - you three are so determined to discover sub-sets of points and then create controversies about those, right in the middle of larger-scale discussions of the first points, that you gum up threads constantly. And almost inevitably these mini-discussions get all wrapped up in who was a dick to whom at some point.

When any one or two of you is behaving nicely, one of the others is guaranteed to bring in this effect. I have no idea why.

Knock it off. Think like sixth-graders working on a logic problem: here is the issue, here are the parts, how does it fit together. Quit taking the parts apart, or rather, take that issue to another thread later. Much later, after the current discussion is concluded.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

Gareth,

I think that step-on-up is distinct from emotional empathy or resonance that one gets from engaging with literature and theme. I don't expect you to agree, nor do I have any objective way to prove that to you--however, I am not the first, nor only one to say it here.

If you can't see a distinction (yes, sportsmen are moved to tears during high-stakes, emotionally charged play--I do not doubt that) then, well, okay--I can't convince you of that.

But I will note that you've told me you've little use for drama or fiction on an emotional level so perhaps your strong preferences account for your difference of opinion.

I state for the record that I presently believe that what creates emotional resonance in humans experiencing fictional dramas is, essentially, what Egri calls Premise. Whether one is "creating it" or simply "experiencing it" may make little difference in terms of it's depth or actuality--but I think this is distinct from step-on-up engagement (the wish to win or simply intellectual engagement) or intellectual interest in ideas.

Not that this is on-topic for this thread. Gareth, if you feel like responding or think I'm "taking the last word" I'm okay with that. Gordon, if you have more to add, I'd like to hear it.

But failing that, I'd like to consider this thread closed.

-Marco