Role-playing Limits, or Do we need Molotov cocktails?

[John Kim]

OK, so this is picking up from http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=15124">Walt Frietag: the LP in Solo CRPGs?.  What I am curious about is a formulation of credibility which is inclusive of live-action RPGs and computer-moderated multi-player RPGs (i.e. MUDs, MOOs, MUSHes, and some MMORPGs).  I am specifically not interested in solo Computer RPGs.  

My bug comes from going to Knutepunkt 2005, which I found was a load of fun and packed with new ideas for me.  However, many theoretical frameworks here -- in particular the Lumpley principle -- is set up such to define these as unrelated activities.  And yet I don't feel that is the case.  I think that there is benefit to viewing these as common activities and drawing from the experiences.  

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.

In particular, this makes me think of the Night Fever LARP that I was in during Knutepunkt 2005 (cf. my http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/cons/knutepunkt2005.html">KP05 Report for details).  That was set in a bar, but it had pretty much the same issue.  There was essentially no allowance for combat, and certainly no allowance for a Molotov cocktail or broken glass hazards.  And yet I think of it as role-playing.  

Going further, it was a mid-sized LARP which took up a bar, so there was lots of stuff going on which I didn't hear -- as well as some events which I distantly heard or saw but didn't have any input on.  At least, it seems like it would have been a huge violation for me to call out "CUT" and object to something happening to some other PC.  So this violates the principle that all contributions require the assent of all players.  

LARPs and computer-moderated RPGs are similar in that they generally have strict limits to what can be attempted.  The first question is whether these share a framework with tabletop RPGs.  I'll take a definite criteria -- restricting to in-character dialogue.  
1) Do you think it is possible to have a role-playing game session which happened to had only dialogue? (i.e. no narrated action, although that would be possible)
2) Do you think it is possible to have a complete role-playing game which happened to have only dialogue?
3) Do you think it is possible to have a complete role-playing game which only allows dialogue?  

Now, I would answer yes to all three -- but that's just a test.  So the question is, how do we define the equivalent of Lumpley-Principle "System" in such a LARP or computer-moderated RPG?  Now, certainly a strong contender for this definition would be Walt Freitag's "Counter Lumpley Principle" (which I would more positively dub the Freitag Principle):

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).

That seems workable, but perhaps another variant would work better.  I'll probably have more thoughts on this, but I'd first throw out the question and issue.

[Ginger Stampley]

3) Do you think it is possible to have a complete role-playing game which only allows dialogue?

I've run into a number of letter games which meet this criterion. While they may be on the edge of the large circle that defines RPGs, in some ways they're very similar to email RPGs, which to my mind definitely fall into the greater RPG circle.

[Alephnul]

John,

I haven't done any LARPing, so I'd like to ask for some clarification:

While you mention that you don't believe that it would have been appropriate for you to step into someone else's interaction by calling CUT and raising an objection, would this still have been true if the players in that interaction had been flagrantly violating the agreed upon rules? If this game had no allowance for combat, and two players played out a scene that escalated until one of them pulled out a "gun" and "shot" the other, and the second player accepted this action and cried out and fell to the floor "dead," do you still think that it would have been unacceptable for you to call CUT and object?

If the two players had played out this scene out of ear shot of any of the other players, and then the dead player had lain around (say, in the bathroom of the bar), until she was found by another player, at which point she explained that she was dead and bloody, would it have been acceptable the player who found her have objected?

Also, what happens if the player who finds the "dead" player in the bathroom simply says, "Hi Jane," washes her hands and walks out, thereby refusing to acknowledge or play along with the "dead" player's contribution?

Although those two types of issues (scenes you aren't present for and scenes you really aren't a participant in, and therefore aren't allowed to refuse to consent to) are obviously much more common (essentially constant) in LARPs, they also exist in table-top games, and I don't think they fundamentally violate the LP.

From the glossary: "System (including but not limited to 'the rules') is defined as the means by which the group agrees to imagined events during play."

From your description, the system of a LARP specifies that events happen when the players present for them agree to them, that players not directly involved in the scene do not normally have the authority to object to the scene, and that as players become aware of an event which has happened, they are assumed to consent to that event having happened (although perhaps they have the authority to object if the event were clearly outside the accepted range of actions that were agreed upon for the game).

Is that a reasonable (bare bones) description of the LARP system from the vantage point of the LP?

On the other hand, if the LP doesn't seem like a particularly useful way to frame the concept of system within LARPs, then it is certainly better to use another framing of the concept of system, but I think the statement that the LP defines LARPs as a completely unrelated activity is overly strong to the point of being false.

It seems to me that all games place constraints on when and how a player is normally permitted to block consensus, and that events in game are considered to have happened when all players present consent to them, even if some players are not present (for instance, in many table-top games, players will intentionally go off and have scenes in secret, and those events are considered to have happened, even though the rest of the group doesn't know what they are). As other players encounter the ramifications of an event they weren't present for, those players must make the decision to consent to those events, or to refuse consent. Certainly, as an event develops a greater history, it becomes much more difficult to refuse to consent to the event having happened, but this difficulty is part of the system of the game. At absolute worst, a player can refuse to consent to an event by dropping out of the game and ceasing to be a player.

Both the Lumpley Principle and the Freitag Principle seem to me to be useful concepts for describing system, either in LARPs or in table-top games. While the Lumpley Principle may have more obvious applications for the sort of free-form table-top games that I generally play, and the Freitag Principle may have more obvious applicability to LARPs, I can see interesting implications for describing free-form table-top system via the Freitag Principle, and for describing MMPORPGs using the Lumpley Principle.

[Alephnul]

John,

Actually responding to your example of a game that is purely dialogue this time.

To my mind, all three examples (although I think there is a problem with the phrasing of the first one that makes it impossible to understand quite what you mean by it, or how it is distinct from the second one) are obviously role playing games.

But such a role playing game (even the third example) can easily (if not necessarily as naturally) be described using the Lumpley Principle:

Within this game, all players have agreed that they will only agree to recognize dialogue as legitimate actions within the world. Descriptions of actions taken (in the here-and-now, rather than dialogue descriptions of actions which were taken at some other time) will not be acknowledged as legitimate contributions to the game.

The Freitag Principle description of this game might be:

Within this game, only dialogue will be recognized as an action taken within the game world.

While the Freitag principle description is much much shorter, and doesn't lead to arguments over whether or not the player in an MMPORG has the ability to refuse to accept that their character has been killed, I think the LP descriptions focus on the idea that the players assent to handle events in a particular matter (and consent to each contribution to the game world as it happens) remains an incredibly important component, even (if not especially) in games where it may be less obvious.

I think that the more important weirdness between forge-theory and LARPs and MMPORGs comes from the difficult of translating the concept of the SIS between table-top and other forms of RPG. However, I think that the discussion of SIS initiated by Victor Gijsbers (http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=14893">http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=14893) goes a long way toward constructing a framework that is more capable of handling LARPs and MMPORPGs.

Perhaps I'm completely missing your point, but I really don't see the way in which LARPs or MMPORPGs or pure conversation roleplaying games can't be described using the Lumpley Principle.

[John Kim]

First of all, I apologize.  I started this thread, but just now realized that I'll be gone for the next three days (Sunday thru Tuesday) and thus won't be able to answer further questions or oversee anything.  So, carry on without me, or if this doesn't actually go anywhere -- my apologies.  

While you mention that you don't believe that it would have been appropriate for you to step into someone else's interaction by calling CUT and raising an objection, would this still have been true if the players in that interaction had been flagrantly violating the agreed upon rules? If this game had no allowance for combat, and two players played out a scene that escalated until one of them pulled out a "gun" and "shot" the other, and the second player accepted this action and cried out and fell to the floor "dead," do you still think that it would have been unacceptable for you to call CUT and object?

If the two players had played out this scene out of ear shot of any of the other players, and then the dead player had lain around (say, in the bathroom of the bar), until she was found by another player, at which point she explained that she was dead and bloody, would it have been acceptable the player who found her have objected?

Also, what happens if the player who finds the "dead" player in the bathroom simply says, "Hi Jane," washes her hands and walks out, thereby refusing to acknowledge or play along with the "dead" player's contribution?

Well, I am speaking from my own impression of the social contract here, which was quite informal.  However, I felt at the time that the only appropriate cause for calling "CUT" would be if someone's physical or mental health were at risk.  Anything less than that, and I would just save it to check with the organizers later (Aksel and Martine).  Actually, having checked my notes again, I realize that combat was allowed.  The system (such as it was) was pretty brief:

There are only two rules:

1) No characters can under any circumstances posess powers that require any sort of game mechanics. Period.

2) There is no system for violence; it must be roleplayed based on what the two players want the fight to be like. To avoid possible complications, the organisers must be informed that a fight is going to happen before it does. This means all fights must be staged.

In the game I was in, no violence occured or even edged on, really.  Which was why I had the impression it wasn't allowed.  I don't think I actually even remembered the above rule during the game.  Certainly it never occured to me during play to seek out the organizers and arrange a fight.  

It seems to me that all games place constraints on when and how a player is normally permitted to block consensus, and that events in game are considered to have happened when all players present consent to them, even if some players are not present (for instance, in many table-top games, players will intentionally go off and have scenes in secret, and those events are considered to have happened, even though the rest of the group doesn't know what they are). As other players encounter the ramifications of an event they weren't present for, those players must make the decision to consent to those events, or to refuse consent.

Well, there are at least a number of posters on the Forge who would say that secret scenes have not happened until they are revealed for group consensus.  i.e. That a secret scene is no more "real" than a GM's private notes of his plan for the session.  From a strict definition point of view, if a player is constrained from objecting to an event, then it doesn't require consensus.  

This is the real kicker, I think.  While it may not be obvious from the glossary word of the Lumpley principle, most discussion of it relies on the abstraction of a singular Shared Imaginary Space which all players have consensus on.  So the Lumpley Principle is the means by which consensus is reached on that SIS.  But this doesn't exist in many LARPs and MU*'s.  There is lots of interaction and negotiation over individual bits of space/text, but no consensus or global collection of bits.

[James Holloway]

While it may not be obvious from the glossary word of the Lumpley principle, most discussion of it relies on the abstraction of a singular Shared Imaginary Space which all players have consensus on.  So the Lumpley Principle is the means by which consensus is reached on that SIS.  But this doesn't exist in many LARPs and MU*'s.  There is lots of interaction and negotiation over individual bits of space/text, but no consensus or global collection of bits.

In LARP contexts, I usually think of the LP-style SIS as the shared imagined space among the participants involved in or affected by the contribution in question.

LARPs, like miniatures games as discussed by Vaxalon a while back, also have a shared actual space, the negotiation of which is a whole big part of the social contract.

[TonyLB]

There's still a Shared Imaginary Space, it's simply that it is distributed and disjoint.  I don't think the Lumpley principle says anything about consensus... consensus is one possible system (well, System, actually) for maintaining the SIS.

In table-top, when you say "I've broken the dam.  Water comes rushing down and covers everything," then that either updates everyone's SIS immediately, or it doesn't.  The rule is applied in that instant.

In LARP (particularly the weekend LARPs I've played at camps) the person saying "I've broken the dam," can be a mile or more away from other players.  System (in the literal form of runners trotting down the trails saying "I am a towering wall of water!  BURBLE SPLASH!") still defines how and whether that change propagates into the SIS.  It just does so over a longer period of time, in many individual encounters.

If, after the runners have announced this to half the camp, a GM intercepts one and says "Oh hell NO!  You go back and remind people that the dam was under a spell of invulnerability until you gained the Khotesh Crystal" then the system (and the runner) turns right back around starts renegotiating that contribution and its effect.

[Lance D. Allen]

I think, in the last several discussions involving the LP that I've followed, that there is a misconception on "acceptance".

Acceptance can be tacit and assumed, depending on the Social Contract of the group. I would say that it is a common 'rule' that anything that is said that is not disputed at the time it was said is accepted. So unless you, as GM or player, speak up and protest what was said by another GM or player, then it is assumed to have been accepted by all present.

It's another common 'rule' that anything the GM says is by default accepted, and that unless consensus can be reached, or a rule can be used in support of contention, that the GM can trump any objection. It's also not uncommon (as many rules texts explicitly state) that the GM may trump any objection, regardless of rules. This does not go against the LP; It's simply the way many groups agree to do things.

So in the cases mentioned of a private scene that most of the group isn't privy too, most groups accept it as having happened by default, because that's a spoken or unspoken rule of their Social Contract. Other groups may not allow anything to have happened that they were not privy too. System is a malleable thing that varies greatly from group to group, but the basic rule is sound in all cases.

So yeah.. It is one SIS, but by the stated or unstated Social Contract, approval of anything that you're not there to witness is assumed until such time as you decide to protest, as allowed by Social Contract.

[M. J. Young]

Going further, it was a mid-sized LARP which took up a bar, so there was lots of stuff going on which I didn't hear -- as well as some events which I distantly heard or saw but didn't have any input on.  At least, it seems like it would have been a huge violation for me to call out "CUT" and object to something happening to some other PC.  So this violates the principle that all contributions require the assent of all players.

I think Wolfen probably already said this, but let me restate it for clarity: this is in fact part of the system, as defined by Lumpley, at work.

There were events occurring in which you were not involved, but that you peripherally overheard them. You believed that the system did not permit you to object--that means that according to your understanding of the system, those individuals were granted the credibility to make those statements into the shared imagined space, and you were required to accept them as valid to remain in the game.

It's not different in kind from a rule that says that whatever the referee says is so is in fact so; in this case, that credibility is not in the hands of the referee, but in the hands of the other players.

The shared imagined space concept is certainly made more difficult by the recognition that not all players have full information. In LARP it might well be that no participant at all has complete information. This, though, is a matter of degree. To devise some examples of degrees--

[*]Fighter has a strength of 89. Whenever he hits anyone, he gets bonuses. Fred is quite aware of the precise strength of his fighter, but Mike, who plays Magician, only knows that Fighter is strong and bets bonuses in combat for it. In this case, our shared imagined space varies based on differences in focus: each player emphasizes in his imagination those details which most matter to him.[*]Magician mentioned at one point that his mother was dying, and he was going on this venture to find a cure for her. Fred heard that said, but as it wasn't particularly important to him he forgot it. One day a treasure box is opened, and there's a vial in it. Magician says, "That's the cure I've been seeking; we must leave immediately to save my mother." Fred might or might not remember that this was Magician's reason for going on this venture, but it has always been part of the shared imagined space whether or not he recalled it.[*]Carl wasn't present at that session in which Magician made the statement, but his character Cleric was portrayed as present by the other players. Suddenly, Carl is asking what all this is about, and Mike is catching him up, bringing him up to date on Magician's dying mother. Carl gets the gist of it, and recognizes that Cleric has known this all along; it's been part of the shared imagined space that his character was present for that discussion, and so his character heard it. He also says that Cleric would certainly make it a priority to get the cure back to the mother as quickly as possible, as certainly this would have been one of his motivations as well. Carl's absence from play when this fact was introduced does not eliminate it from the shared imagined space; he is merely unaware of it, in a manner analogous to the previous two examples.[*]It happens that this particular tabletop game has twenty-six participants scattered between the living room and dining room, and they really can't all hear each other. It is agreed that what happens between any players within the awareness of the referee is part of the shared imagined space, even if some of these events are not known to some of the players. Whether such events are known or unknown to the characters is an independent question, and is answered independently and often individually. That Bill didn't hear Mike make the statement earlier because Mike was at the far end of the dining room table and Bill was at that moment talking with Nancy does not mean that Bard and Ninja don't know what Magician said, or that it's not part of the shared imagined space outside the knowledge of those two players.[/list:u]It is already clear that the shared imagined space is a consensus and an approximation; that each individual's version of it is unique. LARP merely stretches the bounds on this.

What a good LARP needs to make this work is some means of rectifying conflicting statements about the shared imagined space. However, since

[*]players are generally limited in credibility to statements concerning their own characters' actions and[*]a character cannot be present unless his player is present[/list:u]the only real problem I see in this regard is the handling of situations in which one character has the ability to affect another remotely--which I suspect is not often permitted in LARP games.

--M. J. Young

[Valamir]

Yeah, to reinforce the above two posts, I think it would be a mistake to interpret the Lumpley Principle as in anyway requiring that everybody must like the changes to the SIS that System accomplishes.

"Agreement" or "Acceptance" simply means you make the necessary adjustments to your view of the imaginary space.  If you pull a gun on me and demand I hand over my wallet I'll likely agree but I won't like it.

Whatever method accomplishes you adjusting your view of the SIS is, by definition, system.

The insight that LP offers is to recognize that it is a system of offers and acceptances and thus there are many different ways to reach the end goal of adjusting the SIS beyond the traditional "at gun point because the GM says" (which is, of course, a system itself).

[Mike Holmes]

Two points.

1. In terms of the question of whether or not you need to be able to make the molotov cocktail, you don't, not at all. And nobody can make a rational claim that RPGs must allow everything. I don't think that was the point Ralph was trying to make, however.

There is a principle in there, however, that's being elucidated. To make it more clear, a game is not an RPG according to my statement of this principle if there is not an infinite number of possibilities in the game. Again, as I've stated, this has to do with the concept of larger and smaller infinities. In the case of the MMORPG, I think it's an RPG personally, because there is at least one part of the SIS that is potentially infinite - the dialog of the players.

So I would agree with you, John, that a game in which only dialog occurs is an RPG. A game in which no dialog occured, but you could wander about infinitely unbounded by computer limits would also be so. As long as there is some infinity to explore, and the game does not bind the player to some otherwise internal set, I'd say it satisfies this one criteria for RPGs.

2. To agree with everyone else, too, "shared" does not mean that all players know all of the SIS, all of the time. You don't have to go to MMORPGS to discuss it, what about when the GM passes a note? One could imagine playing a game like Universalis where you keep secrets from one another.

The question is not, and will never be whether or not there is an actual equality of information between players as to what the SIS consists of. It never will be perfectly the same. The sharing done is that of sharing an agreement on where credibility comes from. As long as we all agree that the GM can make up whatever he wants, or that I can make molotov cocktails, or whatever agreement on how the space in question is constructed, then we have a system.


So solo RPGs don't count, because an "agreement" with the computer is not relevant. It doesn't care, it just does what it does. The important part of system is that it's a social contract between humans. Even if that contract is to use the MMORPG engine as having "mechanical credibilty" over everything other than dialog and physical interaction (PC way of saying fighting and trading for most MMORPGs.

So I think Lumpley does cover these other forms. But that it's pointless to speak of it in terms of solo CRPGs, because these are not social, and they all violate the other principle in that they have no infinity. Humans are required for that, at least at present.

Mike