OTW: Definitions

[greyorm]

Over in Effects of One True Way on roleplaying experience, Simon asked me:

Aren't you being a bit One True Way-ist yourself? I cite 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' as evidence for the prosecution. If Mark Twain can do it, why can't your Dragonlance fan?

Green has stated discussion of what is/isn't OTW is off-topic for that thread, so I'll answer that question here: I would be comitting the same fault only if I were claiming that it "could not ever be done in any game because that would be bad always."

"Look, I want to play such-and-such type of game. Are you in or out?" is not a case of OTW because I am not claiming that all gaming "must be" or "is" in any way. I'm saying up-front what kind of play I'm looking to engage in -- I'm marking personal-level boundaries, not hobby-level boundaries.

Or to use a non-RPG example, if I say, "I want to play baseball using league rules." I am not committing OTW, because I am not claiming that "real baseball must be played by league rules."

There's a huge difference there, which I hope is obvious.

Any claim by the "prosecution" or devil's advocate that boundary-establishment for a setting is a form of OTW is just smoke, because the claim is not that the desired alteration cannot be done, but rather that I specifically do not want to do it because I do not want to play that style of game.

IE: If I wish play to occur within a particular conceptual framework, and a suggested element does not fit into that established conceptual framework, then it is not a case of "should not" or "could not" (because by altering the framework, addition of the element unarguably could be achieved very easily) but of "do not desire to" instead.

For example, no one is saying you could not or can never have giant robotic mechs in an medieval fantasy game, only that giant robotic mechs may not be desireable in particular medieval fantasy games.

Imagine getting all jazzed up because you read, "The setting is a completely realistic historical recreation of Dark Ages Europe," and the emphasized part is what jazzes you about the game. Then you find out that it has giant electronic fighting war machines, too. Since the emphasized part is what jazzed you, this is going to seriously bother you because it doesn't fit your desired framework of play. Not because it cannot, or should not be done, but because it does not fit with what you want to play.

There also seemed to be some argument about what is/is not OTW in the other thread, so I'm hoping this thread can be used to hash out those differences and definitions: what is OTWism? How does it differ from X? What are the various symptoms of OTWism, and does it exist in conjunction with other desires (perhaps as a supportive device to that desire)?

[Callan S.]

That's basically what I meant in that other post. It sounded like you were saying 'you can't have that PC in an authurian game, it doesn't work in the genre' when you really meant 'you can't have that PC in an authurian game, it doesn't work in the genre for me'

That's what I meant by not having a leg to stand on. The former argument doesn't, the second has an veritable elephants leg to stand on. That 'for me' is incredibly important, powerful and potent. I'd say it's absence lead to an example of poor communication creating an apparent OTW-ism on both sides, rather than actual OTW.

[Marco]

That's what I meant by not having a leg to stand on. The former argument doesn't, the second has an veritable elephants leg to stand on. That 'for me' is incredibly important, powerful and potent. I'd say it's absence lead to an example of poor communication creating an apparent OTW-ism on both sides, rather than actual OTW.

I think the first argument has pretty firm legs too. Genre is a stretchy term but with only a minor amout of qualification (and that qualification is, IMO, implied by Raven's statements) it's clear that dimensional travelers are not part of the arthurian game.

If you put them in then you, definitionally, will not have an arthurian game of the type Raven wants.

-Marco

[contracycle]

I agree with Marco.  If we cannot communicate somehting meaningful with the term "arthurian"  then its all gone pear-shaped already.  I would say any normal person would not expect aliens in an arthurian genre, and will expect knights and swords in stones.  To qualify this expectation seems excessively apologetic.

[greyorm]

I totally agree with Marco and Gareth here, Callan. It's not making sense to me why the "for me" in this specific instance is ending up being the central feature of importance to the dialogue -- not when the desired elements of the setting were and are a concrete thing in the minds of most people.

Yes, I agree that "for me" is an important element of the situation, as subtext. But the conversation definitely does not require it in order to avoid problems and confusions because the desired framework (ie: "traditional Arthurian fantasy") is already clear. Do you see where we are coming from with this?

Now, I'm confused about something you stated:

creating an apparent OTW-ism on both sides, rather than actual OTW.

The girl was literally saying, "All games must be as such."

How is this just an apparent OTW, rather than actual, real, concrete OTW?
(the belief that all play must {something})

Conversely, how is saying, "I want {something specific}" an apparent OTW?
(how is it saying that all play must {something} and thus being confused as OTW?)

From my perspective, regardless that she was making her claim with the goal of utilizing a preferred character, the claim about gaming as a general activity was still being made. The girl was not simply saying, "Well, I don't like that because I want my existing character to be in the game." Yes, that was her reason, but that was not her argument.

Nor was I saying, "Multidimendional travel is just completely undoable in any way in any game ever." I was saying that a specific, known "genre" I desired to play as writ did not include the element she desired to add to it. There is no claim about the process of gaming as a general activity, that changes to the setting "genre" would always be unworkable or unfun, etc.

So, I'm trying to figure out how you concluded that these are both clearly "apparent" OTWism at work?

Let me ask if you are arguing if someone says, "I want to play league rules baseball," they are being OTW? Especially so if someone objects to using a particular league rule for some reason, and the first person tells them, "No, I want to play league rules -- that means all the league rules." Is the insistence that the game being offered be played with very specific, defining rules make it a case of OTW in your mind?

Because that makes no sense to me given the definition of OTW as I understand it (ie: the belief that a specific type of play is the only type of real/true/successful play).

To me, pointing the example out as OTWism would turn the entire idea of style negotiation for a group on its head (as declaring that one wishes to play a Gamist game of D&D would be labelled OTWism; to say nothing of trying to negotiate play expectations before or during a session! -- such as, "I wanted more combat" or "I want some sessions to focus on politics").

So, the defintion being used is not clear to me, particularly in the claim that what has been created is "apparent" OTWism.

From what I can tell, the defintion of being used here seems to be "Two (or more) people in disagreement about how to play a game" regardless of why they disagree about how to play -- their premises for disagreeing, which in the case being discussed are not even on the same level (one is about "how role-playing itself works" and the other is about "how I myself want to play"). That seems an obviously flawed perspective, and I'm sure you would agree.

Hence this thread.
What is the definition of OTW you are working from?

[Callan S.]

Your reading a bit too much into my words

The girl was literally saying, "All games must be as such."

From your first account you sounded you were saying the same thing. I suspect she might have just sounded like that and if it had been made clear that it was important to you, she might have accepted it gracefully (and thus it was not OTW). But that was a guess, I admit, and perhaps I was just being too optimistic. It may well have been OTW on her part.

As for Authurian and what it should convey...no, why should it be granted crediblity by itself? It's just the same as the lumpley principle here, and no one can force anyone to give them credibility at the table. Saying that you personally care about the integrity doesn't force anyone to give credibility either, but I think it's more likely be granted cred because of describing the personal connection. I dunno, maybe I'm thinking too much in terms of interpersonal relationships. Regardless, anyone want to call me out on the lumpley principle being in action here?

[contracycle]

Yes and no.  The credibility you refer to exists, but much more broadly than the local gaming group.  It exists in the massive production and reproduction of Arthurian media already in our culture too.  There is a popular consensus as to what constitutes  Arthurian, even if there is some room to negotiate what your interpretation of Merlin is, for example.  Another excellent case is whether or not Lancelot is a tragic victim of circumstance or a deserving casualty of hubris.  All of these can be negotiated within the envelope that is "Athurian" - but I do think there are limits.  Whatever view of Lancelot you may have you will need to take account of the existing material on the topic, such as the words put in his mouth in the musical Camelot:

A knight of the Table Round should be invincible,
Suceed where a less fantastic man would fail.
Climb a wall no one else can climb,
Cleave a dragon in record time,
Swim a moat in a coat of heavy iron mail.
No matter the pain, he ought to be unwinceable,
Impossible deeds should be his daily fare.
But where in the world
Is there in the world
A man so *extraordinaire*?

C'est moi! C'est moi, I'm forced to admit.
'Tis I, I humbly reply.
That mortal who
These marvels can do,
C'est moi, c'est moi, 'tis I.
I've never lost
In battle or game;
I'm simply the best by far.
When swords are crossed
'Tis always the same:
One blow and au revoir!
C'est moi! C'est moi! So adm'rably fit!
A French Prometheus unbound.
And here I stand, with valour untold,
Exeption'ly brave, amazingly bold,
To serve at the Table Round!

[Marco]

As for Authurian and what it should convey...no, why should it be granted crediblity by itself? It's just the same as the lumpley principle here, and no one can force anyone to give them credibility at the table. Saying that you personally care about the integrity doesn't force anyone to give credibility either, but I think it's more likely be granted cred because of describing the personal connection. I dunno, maybe I'm thinking too much in terms of interpersonal relationships. Regardless, anyone want to call me out on the lumpley principle being in action here?

(Emphasis added)
I do.

When Raven said he wanted an Authurian game he was conveying all the information and statement of intent necessary for clear communication and thereby invoking the LP.*

This is the same thing we went through with your broken vase scenario. You're (IMO) essentially saying "What about the word 'cow' indicates a four-legged bovine? Hey! What about three-legged cows? The word could refer to them too!"

This is all true but it misses the point that outside of a begining semiotics or philosophy class when someone says "My uncle raises cows" you don't flounder about wondering if he means the horse kind of cow or maybe the kind of cow that has feathers and lays eggs.

-Marco
* There might be some gray areas, yes. Dimensional travelers, though, IMO, isn't one of them.

[M. J. Young]

Of course, there are different levels of tolerance in the amount of variation people will accept. Someone must have thought it was all right for First Knight to sell itself as Arthurian, despite such quirks as Lancelot, Peasant Rogue, and Guenevere, the Queen who doesn't want to lose her kingdom. I found the entire movie ridiculous--but realized that I might have enjoyed it (despite those wonderfully impossible hand crossbows) had they not tried to persuade me this was a new telling of the story I knew.

Can interdimensional travelers fit in Camelot? I kind of hope they can, because I'm doing that in an upcoming book. On the other hand, I agree that if you say you're doing Arthurian as an RPG, it is incorrect for someone to argue that it could have dimensional travelers "because it's a role playing game and anything is possible". I could have leprechauns aboard The Enterprise because anything is possible, but if I'm playing Star Trek, I have an inherent commitment that this is not part of the scenario. That is to say, there might be an argument in favor of allowing a dimensional traveler to appear in Camelot, but it has to be an argument relative to Camelot and this particular traveler, and not based on the medium of "everything is possible in a role playing game".

Does that make sense?

--M. J. Young

[Cup of Iron]

I'm thinking this topic is a little superflurious. If I am understanding correctly, the original poster wants a definition of one true way-ism in general and what was one true way-ism in his particular situation, where he wanted to run an Arthurian fantasy campaign and a player wanted to use a character from a D&D world-- essentially a dimensional traveller.

The issue here is not what does or does not constitute Arthurian fantasy. From Excalibur to First Knight to Mysts of Avalon to the animated  the recent King Arthur to the musical Camelot to Monty Python and the Holy Grail to Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, it's pretty obvious that what makes Arthurian fantasy is very, very pliable. But regardless of how pliable it is, there are certain expected elements, such as medieval England, knights in armor, etc. But these elements are so varied, that a mix-and-matching is possible and evident from the list of films above.

So the issue is not what Arthurian means. It means lots of things. What is the issue is what was going on in the anecdote posted to the previous thread. Was either one true way-ism? I don't know. Frankly, I don't think it matters. We could argue the point, but that will quickly devolve into picking apart the word choice in that anecdote, which is useless.

To refresh:

Basically, she wanted to her Dragonlance character to "somehow end up" in my Arthurian setting. I grimaced at the idea. I've never been much of a fan of setting crossovers, though I've allowed them before. In this case, my concern was more aesthetic regarding the setting's integrity.

When I mentioned that AD&D-standard planar portals and world-hopping simply didn't happen in this setting, since it wasn't part of the myth/lore of medieval Arthurian England, she became incensed, and spent an hour trying to convince me that since this was an RPG, anything could happen, and that you could make anything work, that it could be a "one time thing".

I didn't argue that was false or impossible or wrong, but I did try to explain how the setting's integrity would be compromised by its inclusion -- that it was just out-of-place for the genre and so I did not want to include it. She maintained this was ridiculous, because "you can do anything in a story."

Now, what's going on here is the GM was shooting for a particular type of Arthurian fantasy and bring a character from another game setting wouldn't work for that goal. She counters with various with various arguements which basically say "It won't matter" which is simply false. It does matter. When John Boorman made Excalibur, he did not have then break out into a song and dance number. That would have been more suitable for Camelot. When Jerry Zucker made First Night, he didn't replace the horses with coconut shells like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The elements used in these takes on the Arthur legend are appropriate to that particular version. This is what the GM was trying to do and the player was not respecting or understanding this.

(Or so we are told. It is an old wisdom that one lawyer's arguement seems reasonable until the other opens his mouth to state his case. We haven't heard her side of things, but that shouldn't matter so long as we take that into account.)

However, the part about "you can do anything in an RPG/story." This strikes me as the sort of youthful repellion against constraints, but we all know this simply isn't true. One can make anything can be a story/RPG, but not everything is a story/RPG.

[Callan S.]

As for Authurian and what it should convey...no, why should it be granted crediblity by itself? It's just the same as the lumpley principle here, and no one can force anyone to give them credibility at the table. Saying that you personally care about the integrity doesn't force anyone to give credibility either, but I think it's more likely be granted cred because of describing the personal connection. I dunno, maybe I'm thinking too much in terms of interpersonal relationships. Regardless, anyone want to call me out on the lumpley principle being in action here?

(Emphasis added)
I do.

When Raven said he wanted an Authurian game he was conveying all the information and statement of intent necessary for clear communication and thereby invoking the LP.*

I dunno. See, if he was saying everything that was needed, perhaps she was as well when she said 'in an RPG you can do anything'. Perhaps she meant she's always felt that RPG's are very flexible and that she would greatly enjoy it if the Authurian thing was mutated into something not perfectly Authurian, so it can contain her PC?

There's some arguement that one shouldn't have to clarify every little thing you say. But then again a clarification that perhaps takes ten seconds in relation to an activity that takes hours, it's not a very strong arguement. Really this sort of clarification is why people write up part of their social contract, because a few brief words often aren't enough.

This is the same thing we went through with your broken vase scenario. You're (IMO) essentially saying "What about the word 'cow' indicates a four-legged bovine? Hey! What about three-legged cows? The word could refer to them too!"

Did you catch the end of that vase thing, BTW?: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12484

In terms of that thread and the factors from it that might be involved, why would maintaining a pure Arthurian setting get a ten (the highest) with the player, thus outweighing any other concern? Like the desire to avoid a penalty like not being able to play a beloved PC? Someone trying to avoid a penalty is not a sign of one way-ism. The crappy reasons given to avoid it 'oh, RPG's can do anything' sounds one wayish, but the intent itself may have been to just avoid a penalty.

[greyorm]

First off, it seems thus far the issue has been all over the place, and only a few questions posed are recieving the direct answers they deserve. In the interests of understanding, Callan, I ask that you please go back through my last post and answer the direct questions I had asked, so that I know precisely on what premises your viewpoint of the issue is situated?

This is particularly important in light of the above, where you again state that the statements made only "seem like" OTWism. As I mentioned above, I do not understand the basis for any claim of "possible" OTWism given the current defintion of the term and the content of the statements that were made. Answering the questions I asked above would go a long way towards making this view comprehensible to me. Thanks!

Next, Iron makes some good points. However, I disagree with him(?) that it does not matter if such-and-such is OTWism or not. This is the point of the thread, this is why I brought this argument up in the first place. What is OTWism? There seems to be some serious disagreement as to what it comprises.

Hence why I asked for the specific definition of One True Wayism being utilized, as this round-and-round is getting no one anywhere. There is a yardstick by which statements or beliefs can be clearly measured in this instance, and that happens to be the definition we're going to use of OTWism, hence the importance of both: knowing that definition and more than one person being able to apply it to a situation to arrive at the same conclusion.

Also, I want to make this absolutely clear right now: unless someone can clearly and concretely prove otherwise to me, I see intent as a non-issue in this matter. "What I meant when I..." is meaningless and utterly useless as a yardstick. Worse yet is "Well, maybe what she meant when she..." mind-reading which has thus far only clouded and smudged the issue and made the current definition absolutely useless for me (as it does not seem to apply to situations I would call obvious).

I want to see the boundaries of the yardstick being used, as it is apparent that the term is being used yet the definition is not as clear-cut as it would seem among all parties trying to use it.

My stance is such: We can sit and put thoughts into other people's heads all day if we'd like, and I don't see that it will mean anything. Thus, I'm not interested in "What Ifs." The concrete facts of the situation exist, the "He Said, She Said," these are the specific statements made, and so let us measure them with our yardstick.

And there is the snag thus far: assuming we can agree upon a definition of what that yardstick is.

So, if there is an argument which indicates the intent with which a statement about play is made has anything to do with its being OTWism or not, I would like to hear it. If the intent -- the reason the statement is made -- matters when one makes a statement about all play, then I believe the current defintion of what OTWism comprises would have to be rewritten. So, I'm looking to see if anyone can reasonably argue intent does matter here, and how they are going to support that claim.

Again, a number of the scenarios I've posed above actually speak directly to this in the questions they ask, so that might also be a good place to start in response.

[Marco]

I dunno. See, if he was saying everything that was needed, perhaps she was as well when she said 'in an RPG you can do anything'. Perhaps she meant she's always felt that RPG's are very flexible and that she would greatly enjoy it if the Authurian thing was mutated into something not perfectly Authurian, so it can contain her PC?

Only the people involved could ever determine if argument A was 'more important' than argument B. The question is whether or not Raven was *clear* about what his argument was: "If we include dimesional travelers from Dragon Lance the game won't satisfy me as Authurian."

I think he was pretty clear. I understood that. I have no idea if she did or not but I think Raven satisfied the requirements of clear, good-faith, honest communication.

The fact that genres have viable (if loose) limits in no way intersects with the idea that RPG's are an exercise in communal creative effort.

That is: the fact that she was right that you *can* introduce a dimensional traveler to an RPG in no way makes Raven wrong that doing so will be a pretty clear violation of a by-the-book Authurain game.

-Marco
[ Collary: if Raven, Gareth, and I all agree on somthing the universe is clearly getting ready to collapse into a signularity and I advise people to jump clear! ]

[Cup of Iron]

Next, Iron makes some good points. However, I disagree with him(?) that it does not matter if such-and-such is OTWism or not. This is the point of the thread, this is why I brought this argument up in the first place. What is OTWism? There seems to be some serious disagreement as to what it comprises.

I said it does not matter because I find one true way-ism to be one of those useless figments of RPG culture like Muchkin and roll-playing. It tends to mean what the user means at the time. We could attach a useful definition to the term, but good luck getting other people to use it. As it is, it means more-or-less "You play differently from me and you are therefore wrong." Or, maybe accusing someone of saying this to basically turn it back on them."You say I'm playing wrong because I play differently from you, but you're the one who is wrong."

[Callan S.]

First off, it seems thus far the issue has been all over the place, and only a few questions posed are recieving the direct answers they deserve. In the interests of understanding, Callan, I ask that you please go back through my last post and answer the direct questions I had asked, so that I know precisely on what premises your viewpoint of the issue is situated?

Looking at the start, emphasis mine:

Green has stated discussion of what is/isn't OTW is off-topic for that thread, so I'll answer that question here: I would be comitting the same fault only if I were claiming that it "could not ever be done in any game because that would be bad always."

I thought it was open to question whether it was a fault or instead a possible failure of communication on her part/both parties. It's not going to do much to work from what may well be a failure of communication, as something to define what OTW is. If were only assuming she was at fault, then I am very much off topic.