The role of dice

[Marco]

Vincent,

Hmmm--well, I may not be playing the same way as Phil (it's hard to say)--but I don't agree with you on that. As a general statement that "the dice afford credibility" I think that's all right as far as a sweeping philosophical statement goes--but when you say they don't provide suspense/etc "at all" I think:

(a) While I, in theory, agree with the GM's ability to exercise total fiat, there are pratcial limits to this. In a game I was in, the GM could "silence a character" so long as there was a cited reason I understood (or I had faith that there was an in-game explanation for the mysterious silence).

Neither I, nor my players, afford the GM complete credibility if the unfolding action of the game doesn't make sense (i.e. a peevish GM can't silence a character because 'it's ruining the story.' If the character is in space or has a sore throat, however, that veto is workable).

So in that case, the dice *do* provide credibility: the GM, in many cases, cannot override them and maintain credibility (the 'roll on the table' and the GM will have to live with it).

Despite this aspect of play, the GM still is the person at the table with the largest amount of directoral power (by a huge margine, I think, if we can come up with a metric by which to measure it). This means that the GM is still capable of exerting a massive and potentially catastrophic influence on the game (I games I play in and run a player is often more replacable than a GM for a variety of reasons I won't detail here but can go into if someone asks).

Thus I think that the GM does have that veto power (the GM can silence a character--but had better be able to back it up or at least pull a convincing con-job on us) but in many situations, especially dice driven ones, the dice command an enormous influence on play.*

Therefore:

(b) Since there are conditons where the GM either cannot credibly (or will not) override the dice, they do provide suspense. We can quibble over suspense, however rolling the dice is a gamble. The gambler playing Texas Hold'em knows all the odds, knows the results of various hands, etc. The game clearly has suspense.

Note: It may be that Phil's "style of play" has no gambling element to it (or that you don't believe gambling is suspenseful, I'm not certain)--but my style of play certainly does and I think this essay is a pretty good explanation of it.

Finally, I wouldn't say that, as far as I am concerned, dice "need an essay to explain them"--but discussions of how they relate to credibility on the part of participants and 'objectifying the challenge' (assisting me in believing that there is an objective reality in the SiS since no single human is responsible for determining all outcomes) is certainly useful.

If any mode of play that "needs an essay to explain it" is problematic, what does that say about Narrativisim, Simulationism, and Gamism?

-Marco
* Because of the GM's role in determining situation and often controlling pacing and the world's response (running NPC's working counter to the PC's off screen) I think it is very legitimate to consider the GM the "author of the story" (noting that the term 'Story' here is used vaguely, not in the glossary sense (the same way it is used vaguely in TITBB).

[lumpley]

Hey Marco.

So in that case, the dice *do* provide credibility: the GM, in many cases, cannot override them and maintain credibility (the 'roll on the table' and the GM will have to live with it).

Good! My point - the dice take the decision out of the GM's hands. Your mention of "a convincing con job" reinforces this. When the GM wants the decision, he or she has to lie to you.

We'll have to hear from Phil whether in his game the GM controls outcomes or the dice do.

I'll give you that uncertainty makes suspense if you'll give me that meaningfulness makes suspense too. Meaningless uncertainty - as in my poison save while you're buying supplies - is not suspenseful.

(What, you wouldn't say that Gamism, Narrativism and Simulationism are problematic? They pose all sorts of probs. But let's debate that elsewhere if at all.)

-Vincent

[Marco]

Good! My point - the dice take the decision out of the GM's hands. Your mention of "a convincing con job" reinforces this. When the GM wants the decision, he or she has to lie to you.

We'll have to hear from Phil whether in his game the GM controls outcomes or the dice do.

Agreed if the dice are implicitly involved in the determination. The GM may run the guy behind the counter at a hotel without any dice and do so both credibly and without lying (I don't know if that's even an issue here though).

A GM might also forgoe a roll for a character falling into an active volcano since even if the rulebook doesn't tell how much damage it ought to do, the GM is (IME, usually) empowered to make the determination that it's fatal.

(but, yeah, I agree with you here for most cases).

Note: Even if Phil has a take on this, I (so far as I have carefully studied it--which is not *that* far--consider his original essay to be a reasonable description of what I do.

In that sense, even if Phil says "Oh, yes, the GM decides everything but the dice *also* decide everything" (something I would not say) his original words are ones I would use (in those combinations!) to describe what I'm doing. It's a study in how hard the roleplaying dynamic is to describe.

For the record:

1. I would say that participants "control outcomes" since the statement outcome in the SiS issues forth from human mouths (or, similar--the player holds up an open book pointing to a passage in the text that proves him right ... y'know, basically, I'm saying).

2. I would say that player expectation and credibility is (as the Lp suggests) the determinant feature of whether that outcome is ultimately accepted (the GM can say no sounds come out and that may not fly).

3. The GM has certain tools (being the designated holder of hidden information, for example) that afford him or her credibility in a very substantial measure.

4. I would say that the agreement to use dice also exerts great force on this dynamic. So it is reasonable to say that "the dice" determine some outcomes since their use and subsequent result gives overwhelming credibility to certain statements.

So, yeah, the GM determines the outcome of events. The dice determine the outcome of events. Sometimes both do together. Describing inputs into a system as complex and as ongoing as roleplaying makes using the term "determine" and "outcome" problematic at anything but a general level (if a die-result leads to a new adventure and the prep-work hasn't been done, can we say the 'outcome is determined' in any specific sense as the final results are not and may never be fully known?)

I'll give you that uncertainty makes suspense if you'll give me that meaningfulness makes suspense too. Meaningless uncertainty - as in my poison save while you're buying supplies - is not suspenseful.

Oh, absolutely. No question about it.

(What, you wouldn't say that Gamism, Narrativism and Simulationism are problematic? They pose all sorts of probs. But let's debate that elsewhere if at all.)

-Vincent

Um, heh. Yeah. You got me there. :)

-Marco

[Phil Levis]

Consider, the roleplaying session is taking place with a wall between the player and GM.  The scene is one where the player will be making several "tests" which he logically reasons (from knowledge of game mechanics and estimates of relative difficulty) his character will have a 50/50 chance of passing.

The scene commences, 7 tests are made during it, and the PC passes 4 of them and fails 3.  This result is consistant with the players expectations and estimations of the odds.  The player experiences nothing that would make them feel cheated or snap their disbelief.

The GM is on the other side of the wall.  The player has NO WAY of knowing how the GM arrived at those pass / fail decisions.  He might have rolled dice, he might have flipped a coin, he might have simply evaluated each test as they occured and arbitrarily assigned a result based on various factors of what seemed sensible combined with his own sense of drama.

Regardless of how the pass / fail decision was made (with Fortune, Karma, or Drama mechanics) it has zero impact on the players enjoyment of the game.

I disagree. As I said in an earlier reply, "I would even go so far as to argue that a player rolling a die to see how a character performs is qualitatively different than a GM rolling the die behind a screen or some other theatrical device." While I might agree that all Fortune elements being hidden GM ones is not necessarily less enjoyable as Fortune elements used both by players and GMs -- to some degree we're talking about the chops and carriage of specific a GM -- to say there is zero impact is a bit too divested from the act of playing for me. For example, with hidden Fortune, you'll never have the situation where a player needs to make a critical roll, everyone leans in close to see it, quiet prayers are mumbled, and the die is cast. The presence of absence of such events most certainly has an impact.

Again, I think your conclusion might stem from the Forge's abstraction of random elements into the term Fortune, thus suggesting some degree of equality. From a game design perspective, the abstraction is very useful; I think that, from a game playing perspective, it can be a bit misleading.

We'll have to hear from Phil whether in his game the GM controls outcomes or the dice do.

I'll give you that uncertainty makes suspense if you'll give me that meaningfulness makes suspense too. Meaningless uncertainty - as in my poison save while you're buying supplies - is not suspenseful.

As the GM constructs the situations in which dice are used, ultimately the GM controls the outcomes (e.g., the chasm is too far to jump). However, once they are made, the GM is bound to those constructions. If the PCs have a chance of jumping the chasm, then the dice determine whether they do or not. To be more precise, a GM can control all outcomes, but a good one will relinquish some of that control to the dice, for so doing weakens the barrier between character and player.

I agree with your suspense argument.

That's why you think that the role of dice requires an essay. Your style of play makes dice problematic.

It's a bit of a ways down in the discussion, but I later mention the essay was merely an appendix of a proposal to deal with a way to resolve conflicting CAs in a shared game space (a MUSH). As some people want to roll dice and others don't, their role deserves an essay whose primary purpose is to draw a parallel between their use and the awarding of experience.

While I, in theory, agree with the GM's ability to exercise total fiat, there are pratcial limits to this. In a game I was in, the GM could "silence a character" so long as there was a cited reason I understood (or I had faith that there was an in-game explanation for the mysterious silence).

Yes! I agree wholeheartedly. I should have given a bit more explanatory text, but I feel I am already a bit long winded for these forums. If that were to happen to a character of mine, there would be an immediate effort to find out what sorceror cast a spell of silence on me, etc.

[M. J. Young]

This is one of those threads that got away from me. (I missed a day, due to massive disruption in my usual schedule.) I hope I'm not repeating things.

After what he described as a long preamble,

Hopefully, all that has been said above is relatively uncontroversial, and more or less common knowledge.

Actually, what you wrote is extremely controversial and not at all accepted as correct, let alone common knowledge. Your suggestion that randomness is ultimately necessary would certainly surprise Erick Wujcik, creator of Amber Diceless Roleplaying, whose article here, Dice and Diceless: One Designer's Radical Opinion, suggests that randomizers are the part of the process that are least necessary to what we do, and most people play in a manner which minimizes their impact. (I see Erick has contributed here, and appreciate his focus.) I find randomizers useful, but I don't think they are necessary to the concept of a role playing game.

I'm also concerned about whether what you are saying is "I personally would not enjoy a role playing game which did not use randomizers" or whether you are saying "If randomizers are not used, the activity cannot be called a role playing game." Around here one thing we've learned is that it's very difficult to say that something cannot be called a role playing game if the people involved in it think that's what it is. You're going to need a much clearer definition of exactly what it is that defines role playing game, and a fairly solid defense of that definition. I'm inclined to think, however, that were we to identify the first twenty "role playing games" starting with Original Dungeons & Dragons, we could probably bust most definitions that are built on structural requirements. The common structures simply are not there.

If you're saying that Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game is not a role playing game because it doesn't use dice, I think you're going to have to defend that statement. If all you're saying is that you don't care for role playing games that don't use dice, then you've expressed a preference, and that's sufficient. It's the difference between saying that you don't care for pinochle because the deck confuses you and saying that pinochle is not a card game because it doesn't use a standard fifty-two card deck (an argument that can be leveled against canasta and poker, as well).

There is a degree to which dice produce randomness and uncertainty, or one or the other; however, it is also clear that the use of dice often produces predictability. If you examine my http://www.mjyoung.net/dungeon/adr.html">ADRs and Survs analysis, it should provide an example of how this works: by including dice in the process, the game makes outcomes statistically predictable. I was just tonight discussing the design of a certain weapon for a Multiverser scenario, and showing how under the mechanics it had certain probable outcomes--that the user could anticipate defeating a standard opponent within a certain time framework. Dice give games a level of predictability that pure drama resolution does not have in the same way. This is also illustrated in the new engine in D&D3E: the higher the characters advance, the less significant the dice are in their chance of success. The emphasis shifts slowly from fortune to karma, even though the same dice are used, as it becomes a resource management game instead of a risk and strategy game.

Concerning the relationship between the dice and the contents of the shared imagined space, dice stand in the same relation to events as written rules, character papers, prepared scenarios, and other external matters: they provide authority to support the credibility of a statement made by a participant. When my d20 hits the table, I call out, "Hit!"; the referee says, "Wait a minute, I don't think so," and checks the chart. "What are your bonuses?" and I check my character paper. In the end, the number that appears on that die does not resolve what happens. It provides support for the decision made by whoever does resolve it.

I played with an illusionist referee who was so good at illusionism that whatever you rolled he could make you think that what he said happened came from the roll. It never did. It came entirely from what he wanted to have happen, colored by whatever it took to make you believe you had a hand in making it happen that way.

The fact is that in the style of roleplaying under consideration, the referee decides whether or not a roll is required (thus exercising his credibility at the outset as to whether there is even the possibility of success/failure), and then reads the dice with a view to such unmentioned adjustments as he has in his own mind based on the current situation, and spits out the answer he has decided should come from that roll. The dice decided nothing. They provided a reason for whatever the referee decided.

As to the oft-repeated comment that the game is different if the players roll the dice as opposed to the referee using hidden rolls, the answer is of course it is--but not functionally different, only different in feel. Let me give you an example.

I knew a referee in a D&D game who had players roll 3d6 for stats, but then re-roll all ones and twos until there were no ones or twos. I observed that mechanically this was exactly the same as rolling 3d4+6, which you could do a lot quicker. He would not allow that substitution. The point of the exercise was to make players feel as if they were being given something by being allowed to pick up the low rolls and roll them again. In terms of the characters they generated, the two methods are identical. In terms of the feeling the players had, they are completely different.

Thus by analogy, there is no difference in the outcome of the games who rolls the dice. You could open a phone line to Gary Gygax and let him roll the dice and announce the results, and it would not change the statistical probabilities or the outcomes. What makes the difference here is that players have the completely irrational feeling that they are in control of the randomness if they get to throw the dice themselves. Most such players want to touch the dice--dice cups are not acceptable.

So yes, throwing the dice yourself makes the game feel different. It does not change anything other than the feeling. The question then is whether the feeling should be counted as something that matters. To the outcome, it doesn't matter. To the process, it does. Some players will find the game more fun if they roll the dice. Some will find it less so (and in fact will complain that the dice interfere with their ability to forget it's a game).

Phil, one of the words people learn around here is synechdoche. It's the error of mistaking the part for the whole. You've said some very interesting and certainly valid things about one tiny little corner of the role playing world, but tried to extend them to cover a considerably bigger hobby that doesn't find that corner particularly more important than anything else out here. I hope this helps.

--M. J. Young

[contracycle]

Nope I disagree MJ.  I have disagreed previously with the argument that dice are only supportiver of credibility and will do so again.  The use of dice, publicly as mentioned above, is to conciously derrogate from the normal credibility negotiation IMO.

Normally, as you point out, a statement is made ex cathedra by the GM and the players have littel capacity to review or challenge that decision.  But like other process, the more transparent the whole transaction is the less room it allows for illusionistic manipulation.  If the contract requires all rolls be public, including those of the GM, then the contract has effectively denied situational illusionism.

Yes I'll agree that the GM's power to call for or ignore rolls mitigates this effect, but I do not think that undermines the essential validity leant to a decision by the dice.  Not by a person, by the dice.  Rolling behind a screen is a convention, not a universal principle, and IMO its a bad convention based upon systems that were half broken when they rolled of the presses.

Phil, one of the words people learn around here is synechdoche. It's the error of mistaking the part for the whole.

... and which has recently been bandied about with such frequency that its utility is questionable.  I might too suggest you have confused the part of die-rolling that uses dice as inputs to a subsequent decision with the unity of all die-rolling in which the dice may well MAKE the decision.

Phil wrote:

Again, I think your conclusion might stem from the Forge's abstraction of random elements into the term Fortune, thus suggesting some degree of equality. From a game design perspective, the abstraction is very useful; I think that, from a game playing perspective, it can be a bit misleading.

In fact that is not the case, as the Forge also exhibits more specific terminology such as Fortune-At-The-End vs. Fortune-In-The-Middle.  But you are correct that abstractsion sometimes conceal the very material reality of which they are an abstraction.  I don't think that the Forge is generally incapable of distinguishing differing forms of randomisation.  But that said, we seldom look at certain elements such as the game as public space and what that implies for randomness.

[LordSmerf]

I believe that both M.J. and contracycle are right up to a point.

M.J. is spot on with the idea that the GM is the one who decides outcomes.  Even with everyone rolling openly the GM is not required to reveal the bonuses of the opposition.  Further, the GM in most groups is permitted, and even encouraged, to apply "situational modifiers" to the mix.  So if he doesn't want his NPC to die it probably won't happen.

However, M.J. also isn't (as far as I can tell) taking into account that sometimes the GM has no preference, or has a preference that is not strong enough to over-ride his sense of "fairness".  In these cases the GM cedes his credibility to decide an outcome directly to the dice.  So the dice really can determine the outcome as Phil and contracycle have stated, but only because the GM, for whatever reason, has chosen to allow them to.

contracycle is also correct about one thing: transperency reduces the GM's ability to decide outcomes on his own.  The problem is that you basically require total transperency (i.e. the opposition's stats and bonuses in their entirety, as well as all situational modifier declared up front, in addition to the dice rolls being publicly rolled) for this to be effective.

It has been my experience that the people who enjoy the kind of play that Phil is talking about don't enjoy fully transparent play.  That's purely anecdotal though and I'm not sure how useful it is, but it seems to make sense.  The goal of "being the character" is generally considered to be hindered by the player having knowledge that the character wouldn't have.  That way of thinking and transparency just don't go well together.

Thomas

[Marco]

I believe that both M.J. and contracycle are right up to a point.

M.J. is spot on with the idea that the GM is the one who decides outcomes.  Even with everyone rolling openly the GM is not required to reveal the bonuses of the opposition.  Further, the GM in most groups is permitted, and even encouraged, to apply "situational modifiers" to the mix.  So if he doesn't want his NPC to die it probably won't happen.

However, M.J. also isn't (as far as I can tell) taking into account that sometimes the GM has no preference, or has a preference that is not strong enough to over-ride his sense of "fairness".  In these cases the GM cedes his credibility to decide an outcome directly to the dice.  So the dice really can determine the outcome as Phil and contracycle have stated, but only because the GM, for whatever reason, has chosen to allow them to.

Thomas

This also avoids the very obvious case where the GM "decides the outcome" and the players decide he lacks credibility. Even with the most skillful illusionistic GM we can reference (MJ's) he eventually got caught (and MJ left the game).

So it's not just "fairness" and it's not just "preference"--I have, as a GM, faced situations where the mechanics of the game suggested a result that wasn't my preference and which I didn't think I could credibly evaporate with illusionistic techniques.

-Marco

[Paganini]

I think you guys have kinda missed the point. The dice can never establish anything, because they never have to be rolled. As Vincent described, they are a selection tool.

Think of it this way: System (of which mechanics are a subset) is a formalized way of creating continuity among the imaginations of the players. That is, system is what we (the participants) do to make sure that I'm imagining the same stuff that you are. When we roll the dice, we've already decided what we're going to imagine... down to a few possibilities. We're just turning to the dice to pick one.

The dice can never tells us what happens in the same way as a player can, because the dice have no creative impetus. They can't *invent.* That's why dice have no credibility. That's why mechanics have no authority. They're just algorithms to help us get from point A - "gee, there are a lot of possibilities here, what's gonna happen?" to point B - "this is what we all imagine."

[Marco]

I think you guys have kinda missed the point. The dice can never establish anything, because they never have to be rolled. As Vincent described, they are a selection tool.

This is just the difference between theory and practice though. In theory-land the dice have no authority (that's in a philosophical, exactingly correct sense). I think that when the ref flips a coin at the start of a football game, if you try to explain to people that "the coin toss doesn't determine who gets to decide if they kick or receive" you're gonna get some funny looks.

It's the ref that 'has the authority' in the game--but if the ref decided to ignore the coin toss and pick his favorite team, what would happen?

It's literally true that inanimate objects have no "authority" in an RPG. It's also true that the dice "establish things" in a general and yet correct sense of the term.

-Marco

[Paganini]

Marco, you're correct, yes. But my (I guess sort of hidden) point was that the whole thing is a social contract issue. When dice are used as a selection mechanic, everyone has agreed that *no one* will pick. No one has any authority; the dice weigh a particular outcome with credibility... because everyone has decided that they will. It's the same with football. The purpose of the coin is to avoid bias. The participants involved agree to randomly select from the potential outcomes.

In an RPG, if such an agreement exists, then the GM breaks social contract by fudging. If such an agreement does not exist, then the dice do not select anything. They're merely a veil to disguise the fact that the whole thing runs on GM fiat.

[Phil Levis]

Marco, you're correct, yes. But my (I guess sort of hidden) point was that the whole thing is a social contract issue. When dice are used as a selection mechanic, everyone has agreed that *no one* will pick. No one has any authority; the dice weigh a particular outcome with credibility... because everyone has decided that they will. It's the same with football. The purpose of the coin is to avoid bias. The participants involved agree to randomly select from the potential outcomes.

In an RPG, if such an agreement exists, then the GM breaks social contract by fudging. If such an agreement does not exist, then the dice do not select anything. They're merely a veil to disguise the fact that the whole thing runs on GM fiat.

I absolutely agree. However, I think it's a common aspect of the Social Contract that the GM might fudge things. The assumption there is that the GM fudges things not because he doesn't want players disrupting some grand plan, but rather, sometimes prior calculations were incorrect (better to make that a little harder so it's as challenging as the GM intended) or a critical fail/success would change things in a direction that no-one wants to story go in. The key point  is that the players need to trust the GM's judgement in that regard.

[contracycle]

I think you guys have kinda missed the point. The dice can never establish anything, because they never have to be rolled. As Vincent described, they are a selection tool.

Exactly.  Whether or not there is some ontologcal requirement for them to be rolled or otherwise is moot.  They are a selection mechanism; if we all agree to undergo that selection, then the dice are indeed making a choice.  And whats more, they have been granted the credibility to do so.

When we roll the dice, we've already decided what we're going to imagine... down to a few possibilities. We're just turning to the dice to pick one.

That is not a given.  The most obvious challenge is of course, wandering monster tables, in which the very purpose of the die roll is to select what will be imagined.

The dice can never tells us what happens in the same way as a player can, because the dice have no creative impetus. They can't *invent.* That's why dice have no credibility. That's why mechanics have no authority.

No I'm afraid that cannot be true IMO - in fact it reminds me of Cnut trying to command the sea.  There is no reason that a die cannot take on the very vital role in RPG that it does in tabletop games.  If the rules say "roll again if you roll a double" or use a variety of the exploding die technique, then that process is specifically ascribing outcomes to inputs.  The rules COULD be followed by a computer; no human thought or impetus (at run time) is necessarily required to make this result come about.

The human players can elect to attribute credibility to the dice; that can be a strong part, even the basis of, a social contract.

[Marco]

In an RPG, if such an agreement exists, then the GM breaks social contract by fudging. If such an agreement does not exist, then the dice do not select anything. They're merely a veil to disguise the fact that the whole thing runs on GM fiat.

Yeah: if the GM rolls the dice saying "boy, I'm puttin' one over on the players!" (or, better yet, everyone's favorite where the GM is self-decieving along with the players, yeah?)

But, IME, times I've been tempted to change a roll have to do with, you know, the outer-edge of the bell-curve. So really the GM is saying "well, I'm rolling on the whole table but I'm ignoring a certian class of result." [in case that isn't clear, the GM is deciding to break the social contract but still abide by the dice within a certain range. I.e. it isn't as black and white as you're stating it.]

And then there are times where I've seen a GM roll for something automatically and then decide when the dice came up he didn't want to roll for it after all (i.e. force of habbit or not too much thought about it). [ in case that isn't clear, the GM is ignoring a roll but there is no disguise and no veil. ]

And ...

And ...

So, yeah, I agree, as far as it goes--but I think the to-dice or not-to-dice dynamic is more complex than a fair coin-toss or a complete illusion (and even if the GM as complete discretion to decide when a roll is called for that isn't exactly the same thing as saying "the whole thing runs on GM fiat" since a call for the dice is fiat--but the outcome is determined by randomized mechanics [in case that's not clear, I'm taking issue with 'the whole thing' part] ).

-Marco

[Paganini]

Marco,

The thing is, if the GM is *ever* able to fudge (that is, he can disregard the dice without the other players knowing) then it's no different than if he fudges every single result. So your big grey area is just a sham. It might be that the GM doesn't fudge very often - it depends on his internal moral and ethical structures. But the fact that the GM has a choice whether or not to fudge means that he always has the option to exclude input. Just because he *doesn't* do it doesn't mean he *can't* do it. And this means that the only reason the player's input was incorporated into the game is that the GM decided to let it - he decided not to fudge.

I've assumed so far that there's no way for the players to contribute to the SiS that doesn't involve rolling dice, and that's kind of a tall assumption. But, IME, the games that encourage the GM to make secret rolls so he can fudge them give this fudging power in the context of the GM having the final word in other situations as well.

Gareth,

There's not much I can say here to debate. It seems obvious to me that dice don't have *minds.* They don't make things up. Credibility is how likely it is that everyone else at the table will integrate what *I* make up into the SiS. Dice don't have credibility. They give credibility to some player. This is definitional.

When they suggest an outcome as you've described (wondering monsters, exploding dice, and so on) they only do that because these are outcomes we've previously agreed might be cool to imagine.

So, it's like, we gotta come to an agreement on some more basic things before we can discuss further. We lack common perceptions.