Walt Frietag: the LP in Solo CRPGs?

[Gordon C. Landis]

Chris,

OK, that last comment got me thinking.  No means of negotiating the apportionment . . . if there's no one else there, you must be negotiating with yourself, right?  Between yourself and the impression you have gotten of what the absent person(s) are attempting to communicate?

Often an absolutely lousy negotiation to have, especially when compared to the "real thing" - but still a valid negotiation.  Isn't it?  If not, where does Vincent get to have any influence on how we play DitV?

Gordon

[lumpley]

"What influence does the game designer have over our play?" belongs in a different thread.

In this thread, pretty much the only way forward is for someone to post either a) an example of a tabletop RPG rule that makes something happen in the fiction of the game without the players' assent, or else b) the name of a CRPG where my opinion can change what appears on the screen. Until someone does - and you and I both know that nobody's gonna, they don't exist* - arguing about it is pointless.

* In the case of b, make it "don't exist yet." And yes, I'll accept the name of a solo game book where my opinion can change the words printed on the page. A high-tech game book that would be, with changeable print!

Failing that, only Walt's closing words (if he wants 'em) are on topic for this thread. Thank you!

-Vincent

[John Kim]

In this thread, pretty much the only way forward is for someone to post either a) an example of a tabletop RPG rule that makes something happen in the fiction of the game without the players' assent, or else b) the name of a CRPG where my opinion can change what appears on the screen. Until someone does - and you and I both know that nobody's gonna, they don't exist* - arguing about it is pointless.

I'm confused.  I know relatively little about computer RPGs (I've only played a handful and that many years ago), but in every one that I've played, I was able to change what appears on the screen.  I mean, if I couldn't, it would be a movie, not a game.  Can you qualify the question a little?  I can see two possible options, but I'm not sure which you mean:

b.1) I can change what appears on the screen to things never foreseen by the programmers.  

This can arguably happen in any sufficiently complex game environment.  There are a number of games which have progressed beyond branching plots to creating environments with arbitrarily large possibilities.  The more direct proof is something like LambdaCore (I think) or Second Life, where players can create and load programmed extensions into the game.  

b.2) I can arbitrarily change any aspect of what appears on the screen or game behavior.  

Presumably you can get this with any open source game framework such as Tiamat, but only with programming skill and effort.  However, the effort is prohibitive just to play, and I think most people playing a computer RPG aren't looking just to override it.

[lumpley]

Hey John. Try reading it again and notice my use of the word "opinion." If it seems like I'm pointing out something so obvious that you'd think I wouldn't have to point it out at all, you've got it.

-Vincent

[John Kim]

Hey John. Try reading it again and notice my use of the word "opinion." If it seems like I'm pointing out something so obvious that you'd think I wouldn't have to point it out at all, you've got it.

I'm still not following.  No game -- tabletop, computer, or otherwise -- is influenced directly by the opinion in your head.  You have to express it.  Now, obviously the computer won't respond to a verbally-expressed opinion, but if you express your opinion through the computer's controls, then it can have an effect.  

So, for example, if I want a scene back in a certain room, then I manipulate the controls to put me back in that room.  The screen responds to my commands.  I might not succeed -- but I'm not guaranteed of getting my way in a tabletop game either.

[Gordon C. Landis]

I'll add a pointer to Questioning Jack Spencer Jr.'s View of Solo Play.  Are we running into the "no one was disagreeing that a social interaction is needed, they just disagree about whether it is or isn't possible to get that interaction from the already-written work of another human" question again?

Gordon

EDIT to add:  Because if we are, and Vincent's in the "not possible" camp, than he's 100% right that his LP in no way applies to computer games.  Your LP may vary . . .

[Lance D. Allen]

That's the point I think, John. In a table-top RPG, your opinion has a direct effect on what's in the SiS. In the definition of System given in the Lumpley Principle (as I understand it) simply desiring some effect has the potential to make it happen, given that you have been apportioned the credibility to make it so, regardless of the written rules.

In a CRPG, NOTHING happens regardless of the "written rules". Unless what you desire can be acchieved through the game mechanisms, it is impossible for that thing to come true, whereas in TTRPGs, anything is possible, because the System allows for the possibility of any contribution.

To me, this whole idea is nothing more than a mental exercise. The Lumpley Principle seems to lay out a specific definition of System which does not apply to CRPGs as of yet. That CRPGs have System is undeniable, but you have to take into account the specific definition, and realize it simply doesn't apply.

[Callan S.]

1. The "group" is the game developer and the player; the developer is communicating in a delayed way with the player and the program's rules determine whose statements are accepted. But the game developer is not present during play, and in evaluating tabeltop play we do not consider e.g. a module author to have credibility.

I'm really glad this idea has been remembered.

This is one way how I like to imagine credibility happening. First a person to person example:
* Person A says something. Here I like to imagine it as a wobbling bubble that sails across the table slowly until it bumps into player B's head and is absorbed.

The bump is meaningless of course. It's whether player B agrees to it or not that matters. Just because he hears it, doesn't mean he's granted it cred.


Okay, so now a face to programming group example.
* Designer group A burn a CD. This wobbles across distribution channels until it hits player B, who pops it into his console.

Popping it into his console/running it is meaningless of course. It's whether player B accepts the content that matters.


I think a bit of a straw man has come up here "The games rules determine what is or isn't accepted, not the player!".

It's really important to note: until the game stops you from turning the damn machine off, you decide what you give credibility to. Every moment your decide not to turn it off, your granting credibility to the games contents/the designers message to you. Not to mention the directors stance that load/save grants you.

I think there may be a perception that at table top your somehow more in control, that you have more than just the ability to not grant credibility. Any control you feel you have over the game only exists because of this one power you really have.

I feel the important thing to get into is the return exchange, from player B to player A / from player to design group. There is no significant return exchange from the player to the design group. And the effects of that are significant and worth discussing.

[lumpley]

Walt answered my original question, and thus I consider this thread to have fulfilled its purpose. Thanks!

-Vincent

[Valamir]

Wow.

I'm having difficulty understanding how there is any real disagreement on this.

Computers have no imagination.  Until someone invents true AI a computer will NEVER be able to output something that the programmer didn't allow for in the software.  It may make random choices or get an elaborate matrix / decision tree with complex weighting algorithms...but it still is incapable of inventing something that the programmer didn't provide.  The programmer may not have envisioned the use that the player would put various features to...but the capabilities of the features are all defined in advance).

If there's a bar with a bottle that has been graphically rendered to appear full, the computer will never allow you to manipulate it in any way that its not programmed to allow.  It won't let you make a molotav cocktail out of it if thats not programmed in.  If the game is programmed to have a destructable environment it may allow you to break the bottle...but you can't smash the bottle on the floor and expect people to take damage from walking through the broken glass unless that was programmed in.

Computers have NO imagination...Period.  At ALL...zero, zilch, nada, nothing.  No imagination means no shared imaginary space.  Period, at all ever, nothing.  Can't happen without twisting the very definition of SIS to the point where it becomes totally meaningless.


But what about those programmers...THEY have imagination right?  Sure.  But they aren't interacting with the player in any way.  The player may choose options from those the programmer provided, but he can never convince the programmer to add something new (ok...yeah, a vocal fan base can get new features added to the next version...but that's not happening during play). There is no SYSTEM between the programmer and the player.  The programmer is doing his thing in isolation, the player is doing his thing in isolation.  Computer RPGs have plenty of mechanics...but NO system.  There is no granting of credibility going on with a computer.  Whatever the computer is programmed to do, it does whether you like it or not, and whatever it wasn't programmed to do, it can't...whether you'd like it to or not.  You can niether give it any additional capability nor take it away (ok...you can with mods...but that's a different (albiet interesting) topic).  You can't negotiate with a machine.

Considering a computer to be a player is like calling a hammer a carpenter.  Its a tool.  Its a glorified character sheet / dice bot / graphic presenter / mapping utility.  Period.  Character sheets aren't players.  Dice aren't players.  Pictures of landscapes aren't players.  Maps aren't players.

Computers aren't players.


I hate to sound ranty.  I'm not cutting on CRPGs.  I enjoy them enormously (although I like the old school ones like Ultima and Bards Tale better than new school ones like Dungeon Siege or Diablo).  But there is no shared imaginary anything going on.  There is no system going on.  There is no Lumpley Principle going on...any more than there is those things in a game of Monopoly.

Lets talk about what these experiences have in common.  Lets talk about where they differ.  Lets talk about what each can learn or adapt from the other to make them better (and we've done all of that in the past).  But lets not make the mistake of thinking that they are the same thing and should be describable by the same model just because they use the same initials.  They aren't and they can't be.  The differences between a CRPG and a TTRPG* are far more central than merely a different presentation medium.

The really fascinating topic comes in describing MMORPGs and Games like NeverWinter Nights...half TTRPG and half CRPG and how those two forms combine and clash.


* I include on-line games between real humans such as those played by Indie-net gaming along with table top RPGs.  Is there a set of initials that include both.

[Walt Freitag]

Whoa there. I hope the fact that the thread title has my name in it gives me a say in whether it's closed or not. Vincent, you expressed willingness to hear my reply in your posts earlier today, so I'm going to assume that's still the case. Things are going on in my life that require me to drive 300 miles between opportunities to post. Please forgive the lag.

My specific issue is with the completeness of the LP, the implied "all" preceding the statement that "system is" what the LP says it is. That's what I mean, essentially, by "overstated." Change the phrasing to "system includes the means by which the group agrees to imagined events during play" and I have no problem with it. Or change "includes" to "provides" and I'm fine. Note that neither case denies that in a tabletop RPG, agreement to imagined events during play is necessary. So even if I did know of some rule that makes something happen in the fiction of some game without the players' assent, it would be beside the point.

Perhaps it would be instructive if I were to suggest a Counter-LP, equally true (but equally overstated): System is any and all means by which a player's contribution to an imagined space is constrained. (To convince me that this isn't what system is, you must of course show me an example of a role playing game in which a player may affect the imagined space with no constraints whatsoever! ;) ) The CLP, unlike the LP, applies comfortably to tabletop RPGs, solo CRPGs, and even gamebooks (there's no specification that the imagined space must be shared). It demonstrates that adopting mechanics and ceding credibility to one's fellow players are fundamentally equivalent, as both permit (and consent to) the introduction of constraints on a player's action upon the imagined space.

Or in other words, having a computer tell you your character's been killed is not really any different than having four other players around the table tell you your character's been killed. There may be recourse available in the latter case that aren't available in the former (pleading, or expending a fate point to force a change, come to mind), and vice versa (restoring from a saved game, or using a bonus life, come to mind), but if such measures fail and you're dissatisfied with the proposition at hand to the point you cannot accept it, your only guaranteed recourse is the same in both cases: withdraw your consent to admit those constraints upon your imagining. That is to say, walk away from the table or keyboard.

Do I actually believe the CLP is true? No more and no less so than the LP. Each reflects a particular perspective, each is skewed (or perhaps utterly meaningless) from the other's perspective, and each has a convenient fiction at its core (CLP: the unverifiable notion of an unshared imagined space; LP: the abstraction of a group as an active agent (distributing credibility, agreeing on things, etc.) where actually only individuals exist.

- Walt

[Lance D. Allen]

I think the only real issue here, Walt, is that CRPGs and RPGs are using different meanings of the word system. While there are similarities between the two, they're mostly irreconcilable, unless you change the definition.

It'd almost be the same as trying to apply the Lumpley Principle to politics. There's a system there, too, but it certainly doesn't involve SiS or players (Preemptive Har-har for all the wits who decide to poke at this example)

Also.. While I could easily be wrong about the policy here, it seems to me that a topic is closed when it ceases to be productive, rather than simply when the original poster has his answer. If people still want to discuss the ideas brought up in this thread and don't wander off the topic of the LP as applied (or misapplied) to CRPGs, then I don't think it's appropriate to keep trying to declare the thread closed. If you're done with it, stop reading.

Again, I could be wrong about policy, but if I am, please make sure my objection to said policy is noted.

[kenjib]

A computer program is a way to store, present, and manipulate data, and nothing more.  Anything we perceive beyond that is something that we have created ourselves.

I would suggest two levels of perceptions outside of the program itself that we invent:

1.  Translation of the data representations of the game into cultural/perceptual constructs that have meaning.  i.e.  That group of pixels on the screen is an orc (along with everything that implies to us).  That blackness over there implies voracious grues (along with everything that implies to us).  That line of moving pixels there represents my avatar swinging a sword (along with everything that implies to us).  This process is especially apparent in older games, like Atari's Adventure game where everything consists of amorphous blobs that you imagine to represent various fantasy tropes.

2.  Interpretation of the interactions of various data of the game into some kind of meaning.  That orc attacked my knight, which means that orcs are evil (along with everything that implies to us).  My knight just robbed the merchant because he is a scoundrel just looking out for himself (along with everything that implies to us).

How is a computer RPG program different from any other computer game program?  All computer games involve some level of imagined space.  In RPGs, however, you traditionally have a character and some amount of latitude in defining the values, traits, and possibly motivations of that character.  That is what seperates an CRPG from an computer adventure game - a higher level of control over and investment in who your character is and why he does what he does.  The interpretation of both category 1 and 2 stuff is more fluid and subjective for the player than it is for non-RPG computer games - i.e. the player takes on a more active role as a participant in the process.

So I decide to play a computer game called The Elder Scrolls:  Morrowind.  It is a very open-ended game (by industry standards) that allows me a wide range of behavior and motive for my character.  I can act out of self-interest, out of nobility, out of wickedness, and the game world appears pretty responsive to all of these choices that I make, responding appropriately to my various deeds and misdeeds such that I feel that my behavior is reflected in the game data.  However, all of the meaning only exists in my head as I play, not in the game itself.  The game only stores, presents, and manipulates abstract data (primarily dots of colored light arranged in a large grid, projected wave disturbances in the distribution of air particles (i.e. sound), and abstract numerical representations of character and motion input from various devices) to help me to do this.

I take this data processing program and a feedback loop emerges between it and myself.  This feedback loop is a possible working definition of functional "play" in a CRPG.

Step 1:  I want to be a selfish bastard.
Step 2:  I input selfish bastard data into the game to the best of my ability.
Step 3:  The program, in charge of storing, presenting, and manipulating data, determines to what extent I can do this by offering to me a certain range of possible data manipulation and presentation.
Step 4:  Based on what the program allows, I refine my image of what my character is.  If the data of the game keeps coming back such that I interpret it as noble hero regardless, then I will either be discouraged from attempting to insert selfish bastard data again or I will just ignore what I don't like and continue to insert selfish bastard data despite the results.  This latter is a form of dysfunctional play and was especially easy in older games where consequences for actions rarely enforced character motivation.  Ultima IV and V, as I recall, where a huge change in how this worked and are widely regarded as very important CRPGs.

The distribution of credibility lies in the way that the game allows you to apply your interpretations outside of the computer toward the reality of the data representation inside the computer, a process which is defined by the author.  The places where data meets interpretation comprise the imagined space.

Whether the space is shared is really tautological when you get down to it.  If you defined shared as only referring to active human participants than it is not.  If you include inactive human participants than it is due to the authors of the game, however this has big implications for tabletop rpgs too.  I would agree with Ralph that you can not define the computer as an actual participant in the SIS since all it is doing is crunching data.  Any external creative input you receive while playing a CRPG comes from either the game's authors or the player, and both operate on the level of mapping abstract data on to cultural constructs with meaning.  The program is nothing more than a means of communication between an author and a player, just like words written on pages in a book.

[contracycle]

a) an example of a tabletop RPG rule that makes something happen in the fiction of the game without the players' assent,

Easy, save vs. poison or die.

Now you might say, "a person had to put it there", but thats not true - it could have been randomly generated by die roll against table, and it matters not if the die rolled was physical or virtual.

or else b) the name of a CRPG where my opinion can change what appears on the screen.

Thats a false dichotomy - if you don't COMMUNICATE, of course nothing is going to happen.  A black box is a black box.  But of course your opinion on whether to turn right, or left, causes different things to be drawn on the screen.

Valamir writes:

Computers have no imagination. Until someone invents true AI a computer will NEVER be able to output something that the programmer didn't allow for in the software.

This is not true, and has not been for some time.  We have quite a batch of Artificial Life programmes that produce complex, emergent behaviour out of simple rule-sets.  Further...

f there's a bar with a bottle that has been graphically rendered to appear full, the computer will never allow you to manipulate it in any way that its not programmed to allow.

Not for long.  The HAVOK physics engine used in HL2 looks set to usher in a new era; the next generation of mainboards are likely to carry Physics Processing Units.  At the moment, machines can only handle about a hundred physics-enabled objected, but with a PPU they will build houses out of individual bricks.  And thus, you most certainly be able to use a bottle as a molotov.

--

The notional dichotomy between comuters and players is an illusion IMO.  Almost hubris, depending on your philosophical stance.  After all, what are YOU, the player?  You too are, IMO, an emergent phenomenon from a complex rule set executing in real time in a grey-jelly matrix.  The distinction between computers and people is purely quantitative, not qualitative, IMO.

Thus, is there ever case where credibility, in my take, is ceded from "a person" to "a machine"?  No - merely from one rule-set to another rule-set.  The locus of decision has changed - the fundamental nature of the decision has not.

[lumpley]

Gareth: Your save vs. poison example fails, because it requires the assent of the group to become true. I could demonstrate this to you conclusively in 45 seconds of face-to-face play; here's how the conversation goes:

I say: Save vs. poison or die! [rattle rattle] You succeed! You live!
You say: That sucks. How about I die instead?
I say: ...Sure, okay. You die instead. It's painful and horrible! Your blue tongue sticks out!

The rules can't make anything happen in the fiction of the game except by the players' assent.

I agree with you in principle about AI, but I look at the games on my PC and they just aren't anywhere near. That's not hubris; I'm seeing and describing a quantitative difference, as you say.

So now:

Walt: awesome. In fact I prefer the CLP to the LP, now that you've said it, and now that I'm a couple years further along in my own thinking.

Very cool.

It seems pretty much compatible with my question in the thread I linked to:

Instead of asking "is playing a CRPG roleplaying?" ask "how does roleplaying change when the events of the game happen according to really-truly non-human, non-social arbitration, not consensus?"

Thanks for putting up with me calling you out like this.

-Vincent