Credibility of the rules as written

[TonyLB]

Okay, I think I've parsed that.  If we return to the subject of roleplaying specifically (as opposed to the broader langue/parole analogy) I get this:

[*]Groups need to take some time to get used to the formal elements of the ruleset.
[*]Even people who have played the game in the past with a different group will need to relearn the rules in a new group, because those rules act primarily in their influence on inter-player relations.
[*]Coincident with and often extending beyond the formal learning they need to get used to the informal structure that they create using the ruleset.[/list:u]So, if I've successfully dumbed that down to my level, my follow-up is this:  Is the influence of the formal elements in forming the informal structure:[list=a][*]Non-existent[*]Absolute[*]It does some things, but the players do others, that breakdown being consistent across multiple groups and rulesets[*]It does some things, but the players do others, that breakdown being consistent across multiple groups but varying with ruleset[*]It does some things, but the players do others, that breakdown varying widely across groups[/list:o]

[matthijs]

Because it sounds like you're agreeing with what he says about the "first ruleset" (...) But you're phrasing it as if it applies to all rulesets, whether they provide something more or not

Yeah, that's about right. I'm guessing that if I'd played DitV for as many years as I played the Gygax Variations, I'd probably still be ditching the rules, but playing in a different way. My group would be doing conflict resolution and escalation without bothering to roll the dice.

Instead of riding a bike without training wheels, I'd be riding a motorbike without training wheels.

[matthijs]

Is the influence of the formal elements in forming the informal structure: (...)

Well... it's kind of hard to say, as in reality, only a small percentage of players learn only from the rules. They learn from their own interpretation of the rules and from other people, who've done their own interpretations of (possibly different) rules and learned from other people, who... etc.

Without this supporting frame of people teaching each other "what role-playing is", I guess the situation would be "e". Recent "cargo cult" discussions indicate that that's what actually happened when people had to learn it all from books.

[Valamir]

I am in complete agreement with Vince's split on the question of what rules accomplish above.  

I think its probably self evident that the first case (the "Unity of Vision only" case) is what leads some gamers to conclude "the rules are unimportant", "a good GM can make a great game out of any rules set", "We'll just port the game over to our house version of X", etc.  

The second case (the "Unity Plus More" case) is the realm of "System Matters".  It is the counter arguement to all of the common views noted in the previous paragraph.  There are things that a good set of rules can accomplish to drive play that no mere amount of "Unity of Vision" can accomplish consistantly.

That gets to the heart of the earliest discussion we've had here on the Forge when we were still fumbling for ways to articulate the difference between rules that don't "get in the way" vs. rules that actually "facilitate a desired agenda".

It should come as no surprise that I also agree that current designers designing "unity of vision only" games is largely a waste of time (in the "already been done" sense).  But that we're just getting started experimenting with "Unity Plus More" designs.

[clehrich]

... the formulation of a play-group's "unity of vision" is a matter of absorbing and naturalizing not only the overt relations---raw mechanics, setting, etc.---but of constituting the rules-set as a social authority structure to which the play-group's specific structures must conform, and of mystifying (concealing even from themselves) the ways in which perceived nonconformity amount to the construction of even more rigorous authority.

This is very true (pray God I understood it). It's also just the luddly puddly again, isn't it? The group incorporates the rules (to some extent) into the process by which they decide what happens in the game?

I'm worried that we're going off-thread, but presumably Jay will kick butt if we are.

Why have rules? The answer is, why indeed? - unless the particular ruleset you're talking about contributes more to the game than mere unity of vision.

But if we're talking about social authority structures, then "unity of vision" is a hell of a lot.  It's 99% of Social Contract, for a start.  If we have a rules-set that works powerfully to formulate and maintain a social contract, constructs methods by which players negotiate what they can and cannot do within the game, and generates the described results in such a way that it matches social contract expectations (i.e. produces something that the players identify as what they thought the game would produce), then that's huge.  I think most games do not do this especially successfully, as texts.

What I think Jay is suggesting, or wondering about, is whether the rhetorical power and thus credibility ascribed to the texts assists in this process, and how that is formulated by the texts.

Let me give the #1 most obvious example: AD&D.  The original AD&D I mean.  I think this is certainly the most influential game ever written, having in many senses constructed the hobby to such a degree that the vast majority of "common wisdom" originates in the ways people actually played AD&D.

Now by the analyses around here, AD&D is in a number of respects incoherent.  I'm not going to debate that here, unless Jay wants to do so and take up the ball.

But the fact remains that no set of game texts I have ever heard of have had such amazing authority with so many play-groups.  These things were like bibles for play, thus a lot of the humor of KoDT.

The question that necessarily arises is why.  And I don't think simplistic answers like "it was all that people saw" are sufficient, though of course that's relevant.  Something about those texts hit a vast group of players, new and old, and said "obey me."  And they did, or thought they did, or felt clever because they ever so slightly disobeyed (thus Heartbreakers).

The conclusion I feel is necessary is that the scriptural or canonical power of RPG texts is something that the Big Model has no means of analyzing.  I don't mean that it should; I think that's outside its scope.  But this is to my mind virgin territory for analysis: what made those texts act as independent social---even moral---authorities?

There's something very big we're missing, and a bunch of recent threads are starting to prod at it, but I don't think we're close to figuring it out.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

That's very interesting, Chris (and by extension of course, Jay). I only offer a couple of possible avenues of speculation at this point. Here's one of them.

It's going to be hard for the younger folks to believe this, but back in the early to middle 1970s, the early-teen crowd was not considered a very important target market. Most of the stuff available for us to do was a fairly crappy or hastily dolled-up version of the same stuff that had been offered to the previous wave.

Plus, no real video games (Pong was just out). No MTV, in fact, no cable as currently construed - this was back when the numbers on your physical channel-switcher actually matched the TV channel being shown.

No Walkmans. No home computers. No internet (OK, geeks, yes, I know there was an internet, but it wasn't the internet as currently utilized). No email, no cell phones. There were arcade games, and some were pretty cool, but they were money sinks. No VCRs, and no way to see a movie except in the theater or chopped-up on late-night TV.

It was really really a different world. Back then, a unique, new, and complex activity, which seemed just right for our particular age group (and the current interest in retro swords-and-sorcery a la Molly Hatchet album covers), was incredibly attractive. Now there are hundreds of such activities. Back then, it was sports, getting stoned, reading all damn day and night, hangin' out, getting involved in crimes, or wandering around aimlessly on railroad tracks or vacant lots.

You ever see the movie Stand By Me? Or perhaps River's Edge? How about Fast Times at Ridgemont High (which is totally not funny if you actually watch it)? The first half of Boogie Nights? Just like that.

So say, 1976, after D&D showed up at GenCon and when servicemen were picking it up and spreading it around everywhere ... the drive or need for such an activity could be considered very great, in comparison with today. This view also perhaps justifies the otherwise-ridiculous assertion, which you can find scattered all over gaming culture of the late 1970s, that role-playing was THE next big thing, due in any moment to be hailed by everyone far and wide as their favorite pastime.

Best,
Ron

[coxcomb]

This is all good discussion and, as far as I'm concerned, not drifting away from the intent of the thread.

I really like the language analogy. It helps me articulate some things:

Just as with language, people have personal tolerances for deviation from the langue (to use the term Dr. Xero did). You can think of the rules as written as the dictionary. They are always there to refer to when someone thinks things are getting out of hand.

Some people are clearly happy to run without reference to that dictionary and make things up as they go (kind of the freeform poets of RPGs). Other folks (I maintain that it's most folks, but please prove me wrong) have a very delicate sense of when the parole veers to far out of alignment with the langue. The natural instinct is to look to the published rules.

Why is a different question.

I still think it has a lot to do with nature of games in general. A lot of folks make a point of saying that RPGs aren't really games, and that's debatable. But they have been *called* games since the start and that has a psychological effect on people.

As soon as we're talking about games, we're thinking about rules. How do you play? How do you win? What can you do that will get you in trouble? Sure, we learn to play almost all games from someone else--same thing with RPGs. But when that someone does something we don't like, what do we do? We look it up in the rules. The rules provide the impartial authority that governs play. Without being able to "check the rules" you are trusting the GM to be impartial and honost--but this is a game right? If he's playing to win, he's not impartial.

Depending on people dynamics, the need to check the GMs authority may never arise. But I think we all deep down need that authority to be there.

[Vaxalon]

But that authority is an illusion!

[TonyLB]

Jay, you tempt me sorely to get into the issues of GM-selflessness, winning the game, and such.  But I overcome my baser instincts, for now.

I think that it's worth looking at why people deviate from the formal rules.  In general, I think that folks have a very good (if sometimes unconscious) sense of which rules serve their purposes and which rules get in the way or are just irrelevant.  Rules that serve the purpose get used.  The others fall away.

As they get better at doing things themselves (particularly what Vincent calls "Unity of Purpose") more and more rules drift from the "serves our purpose" category to the "irrelevant" category.  But I am of the opinion that there are things a rule system can do that will always serve a purpose:  that any group that gets good enough to do them at level X without the rules will be able to do them at level X+1 with the rules.  Hence, some rules will not fall away, no matter how long you play.

[coxcomb]

But that authority is an illusion!

Yes, but life is an illusion!

I'm kidding (mostly), but any social construct, such as the concept of having rules in the first place is illusory. The human mind functions based almost entirely on illusions of one sort or another. It's the nature of the beast.

The fact the the rules sitting around without people have no authority does not diminish the fact that people very often choose to give them that authority.

Players of games choose to give the rules of the game authority so that they have a framework for (potentially) harmonious play. Of course the rules have no more authority than the people involved give them. I'm not arguing that.

Let me ask you this: is there any authority that you think isn't an illusion?

[coxcomb]

Jay, you tempt me sorely to get into the issues of GM-selflessness, winning the game, and such.  But I overcome my baser instincts, for now.

I wish you would get into them. But perhaps on another thread. :-)

[clehrich]

But that authority is an illusion!

To follow up on Jay's point within the linguistic context, it is an illusion that "cat" means my fluffy pet over there.  That is a purely social construct, in no way empirically demonstrable outside of behavior.  Just so, if everyone in a game says the GM has authority, he has authority socially, but none otherwise --- in just the same way as you can use any set of sounds you want to express whatever you want, and there is no authority to stop you except an illusion.

[lumpley]

Why have rules? The answer is, why indeed? - unless the particular ruleset you're talking about contributes more to the game than mere unity of vision.

But if we're talking about social authority structures, then "unity of vision" is a hell of a lot.  It's 99% of Social Contract, for a start.  If we have a rules-set that works powerfully to formulate and maintain a social contract, constructs methods by which players negotiate what they can and cannot do within the game, and generates the described results in such a way that it matches social contract expectations (i.e. produces something that the players identify as what they thought the game would produce), then that's huge.  I think most games do not do this especially successfully, as texts.

Nah. I mean, I agree with all of that, but big deal. You don't need rules to achieve unity of vision, so it doesn't matter that most games don't deliver it, and it doesn't matter the few games that do deliver it.

People make unity of vision. Sometimes they use a game text, to some variable extent. Sometimes they use none.

Let me confirm that we're using unity of vision the same way, to mean "players negotiate what they can and cannot do within the game, and generate the described results in such a way that it matches social contract expectations (i.e. produces something that the players identify as what they thought the game would produce)."

That's super easy to get, and the reason is right there in the description! Barring social sabotage by broken human beings, "players negotiate... and generate" will overwhelmingly lead to "produces ... what they thought [it] would produce." You can make a very solid start at this with no more than willing people, half an hour, and someone to be the helmsman (tx Ron). Book or no book. Or the best book ever! It still takes willing people, half an hour, and a helmsman.

And then two or six or fifteen sessions later, that group has got it down. Book, no book, or the best book ever. At that point, rules schmules - unless the rules are giving them something rarer than unity of vision.

This is where rules' power isn't an illusion: when they give a group better than the group can get without them. As a designer, you can't expect your rules to command authority. You have to hope that your rules win the group's loyalty - by being more fun than the group could get on its own.

Think about how much fun it is to hang out with friends and you'll see how significant this is. This is the accomplishment of the Mountain Witch and Primetime Adventures, to choose two I've played recently from the bunch. It's not as cheap or as trivial as unity of vision.

-Vincent

[clehrich]

But if we're talking about social authority structures, then "unity of vision" is a hell of a lot.  It's 99% of Social Contract, for a start.  If we have a rules-set that works powerfully to formulate and maintain a social contract, constructs methods by which players negotiate what they can and cannot do within the game, and generates the described results in such a way that it matches social contract expectations (i.e. produces something that the players identify as what they thought the game would produce), then that's huge.  I think most games do not do this especially successfully, as texts.

Nah. I mean, I agree with all of that, but big deal. You don't need rules to achieve unity of vision, so it doesn't matter that most games don't deliver it, and it doesn't matter the few games that do deliver it.

I just realized we're talking about radically different constraints on "what the game would produce."  Thus the confusion.

Consider the old bugaboo: story.  We have some game that says that it will generate stories, every time, and they're going to be just like (let's say) Icelandic sagas.  What I was getting at is that in a lot of senses, that's really just not going to happen.  You'll get something, to be sure, and it may be sort of like Icelandic sagas, but it won't be just like them.  People who had nothing to do with the game who just read a literal transcript -- here comes the awful word again; how about a transcribed recording of what was said in play, OK? -- might very well say, "Well, sounds like you had fun, but what the hell has this got to do with Icelandic sagas?"

Now assuming we're on the same page thus far, as a hypothetical....

Okay, the point is that the rules and their group interpretation and construction have to be, in the ideal case, so powerful that everyone in the game does not see it that way.  They're saying, "That was Icelandic saga, all right, no question about it, what a great game!"  Now my contention is that a much smaller version of this is always going on.  The rules are a big part of how the re-interpretation in-game and post-game occurs, such that what was in play X way is described, remembered, and even potentially experienced as Y.  And I'm saying that's a big thing.

What you're describing is a basic social structure that allows positive interaction and everyone to have fun, or the like.  And you're right: that's not particularly hard to achieve, and doesn't require rules or anything like it, though they can help.  But getting everyone to say, "Why yes, we just did Tolkien and really lived it," is quite a big deal.

Sorry.  I didn't expect this to become the direction of the thread, so I never spelled that one out, thus the miscommunication.

[lumpley]

Chris, no, I'm pretty sure that I'm saying that your "the ideal case" is a comfortable and achievable standard, and that your "big thing" is no big thing.

Just to make certain, I have this for "unity of vision":

...a rules-set that works powerfully to formulate and maintain a social contract, constructs methods by which players negotiate what they can and cannot do within the game, and generates the described results in such a way that it matches social contract expectations (i.e. produces something that the players identify as what they thought the game would produce), then that's huge.

I have this for "rarer than mere unity of vision":

...the rules and their group interpretation and construction have to be, in the ideal case, so powerful that everyone in the game does not see it that way. They're saying, "That was Icelandic saga, all right, no question about it, what a great game!"

And I have this for "unity of vision" again:

...a much smaller version of this is always going on. The rules are a big part of how the re-interpretation in-game and post-game occurs, such that what was in play X way is described, remembered, and even potentially experienced as Y. And I'm saying that's a big thing.

I say: the "unity of vision" things, 1 and 3, are trivial nothingburger things, and if your rule design stops there you mightn't have bothered. The "rarer than mere unity of vision" thing, 2, is the standard by which you should measure your rules (in its many versions, not to limit the field to Icelandic sagas).

Am I misunderstanding?

-Vincent