(Accepting/Rejecting) x (Text/Meaning)

[TonyLB]

And it's nothing to do with authority...if I were giving out authority to do something, I'd be able to withdraw that authority without any consequence at all.

I think this is dead wrong.  When you assign authority and then withdraw it, you very much do cause consequences.  Socially destructive consequences, usually.  In fact, people go through incredible hand-springs not to do any such thing.  And here's where I further disagree with Troy (I'm just disagreeable today, I guess):  The poison example absolutely is an appeal to you as a player.  And it's an appeal that you had to choose to honor or deny that the poison potion was a good argument for poison weapons.


Anyway, I think investment is an incredibly important concept.  I also think that, on its own, it's too slippery for me to get any sort of analytical grip on it without other concepts to leverage.  So what does Investment mean, in terms of authority, meaning, motive and text?  Is it a motive to find meaning in a specific text?

For instance:  You say you are "invested" in the potion being poison.  Is this the same as saying that you have a motive (as yet undefined) for finding meaning in that text?  Let's assume that there is also a magic cursed voodoo powder that you're less invested in.  If a player appeals to you for a poison blade, using the poison-text as justification, are you more likely to grant that authority than if they appeal to you for a cursed zombie blade, using the voodoo-text as justification?

I think that the answer there is "Of course I am... I'm more invested in the fact of the poison."  But does "invested" mean anything beyond that?  Or is it synonymous with "I am motivated to grant appeals to authority based on that text"?

[Callan S.]

Heya Tony,

I think this is dead wrong. When you assign authority and then withdraw it, you very much do cause consequences. Socially destructive consequences, usually. In fact, people go through incredible hand-springs not to do any such thing. And here's where I further disagree with Troy (I'm just disagreeable today, I guess): The poison example absolutely is an appeal to you as a player. And it's an appeal that you had to choose to honor or deny that the poison potion was a good argument for poison weapons.

Emphasis mine.

I basically agree with the italicised sentence and indeed with the idea of consequences for withdrawal of support. But I just don't see it as involving authority at all. It may just be a preference to use the word differently, but it may be more.

So what does Investment mean, in terms of authority, meaning, motive and text? Is it a motive to find meaning in a specific text?

Imagine that the GM just says to the players "You all see a dragon and kill it!". It's just a statement...no one is compelled to back it up.

Now imagine instead that I know the GM is invested in the idea that if a creature looses all it's HP, it's dead. And I find a way to make all the dragons HP go away.

In this case the statement "the dragon is dead" is backed up. The GM can either give up his cherished idea about zero HP = death, or himself acknowledge my contribution to the SIS. The GM just telling me the dragon is dead is nice. But when I hold what he cherishes to ransom, which then forces him to acknowledge its death...I've actually achieved something at the same strength that he wont give up that cherished idea.

Ransom is a negatively polarised word. But basically it applies; he has to to loose something if he doesn't choose to acknowledge my statement. I've got him over a barrel. This can easily be an entirely positive affair, as my poison example shows. But I just don't see any authority involved in this process. No one is really in control or authorative. So rather than appealing to the authority of a fact, you can certainly appeal to someone that their cherished fact compels them to support the statement.

If a player appeals to you for a poison blade, using the poison-text as justification, are you more likely to grant that authority than if they appeal to you for a cursed zombie blade, using the voodoo-text as justification?

I think that the answer there is "Of course I am... I'm more invested in the fact of the poison." But does "invested" mean anything beyond that? Or is it synonymous with "I am motivated to grant appeals to authority based on that text"?

I'd actually say it's the same myself. Except that my saying 'I'm granting authority' is a convenient fiction, since to say 'he has me over a barrel on this' doesn't seem very positive.

It's just that accepting this convenient fiction here as fact can be detrimental if applied elsewhere. If I assume I can grant authority whenever I want, why can't I just say the dragon is dead (rather than fight it through the combat system), then grant this authority, and it's riviting game play? Well, because I've never been able to grant authority like this...I need to put someone over a barrel on this. Then they wont deny it (unless they want to give up their investment). I use the combat system to kill the dragon, because everyone is invested in that combat system. The combat system is actually provided so people can invest in it this way. And then I can use that to ensure everyone accepts this dragon is d-e-a-d!

Even if a GM just says "Your all in a field, with the dark mountains in the distance and a rainstorm coming" it might sound like he doesn't have you over a barrel and instead authority is being applied. But really your over a barrel...as long as he's within SC boundries, you either accept this or stop playing. I'd assume one would be invested in the act of playing. Thus your over a barrel. The poison example is a further barrel, nested within this one. One can have multiple barrels nested within each other...very compelling stuff.

I've written too much, so I'll give it a pause here.

[TonyLB]

I think your ransom model is one way of persuading people to give you authority.  It's not the only way.  And I certainly don't think that granting authority is a subset of ransom-activities.

Let's say I want authority for the statement that my character has a ring of infinite wishes.  There are many, many ways I could go about getting that authority from other players:

[*]"If you don't give me a ring of infinite wishes, I will start singing one-billion bottles of beer on the wall, and not stop."
[*]"You said you were going by the random treasure charts... look, right there, I rolled 666 on d1000.  Ring of infinite wishes.  Pay up."
[*]"If I had that ring, we could totally explore the question of how my flawed mortal character deals with unlimited power.  Wouldn't that be neat?"
[*]"I have quested, far and near, through the glowing black-fire caves of Glorch, to the high pinnacles of Theraavon where the ice-pygmies dwell, to find this ring of power, that I might give it as a bridal gift to my beloved, who marries my arch-nemesis this very evening.  Only thus may I show the depth of my affection, while still maintaining my honor by not opposing the wedding."
[*]"What's the big deal?  You're still the GM.  It's not like unlimited wishes are going to give me enough power to derail anything.  I just want to have some fun."[/list:u]I see (pretty clearly, for me) that some of these are "put someone over a barrel" situations, and some of them aren't.  But they're all very clearly appealing for authority to narrate the SIS.  

Do you see them all as "your over a barrel"?  Or do you see some of them as not appealing for authority?  Or something else?

[charles ferguson]

Hi Callan

What you seem to be saying is that because we're not forced to obey this so-called authority--we always have a choice--it's not really authority at all, so we should call it something else.

The thing is, I think you're confusing authority with force. Authority *always* requires the acknowledgement of those subject to it--without that acknowledgement, it doesn't exist.

Force, on the other hand, is indifferent to the acknowledgement or otherwise of those it's used against. That's what 'force' means.

What 'authority' means is exactly what I see both you & Tony talking about: something that's binding only as long as, and so far as, each of the bound parties agree to be bound (whether that agreement is conscious or unconscious, given freely or coerced, or whatever).

Your examples of investment are, to me, all explorations into the nature of SIS-related authority, & the different ways it can be derived. That's valuable in its own right, but in trying to set them up in opposition to the concept of authority per se I think you're tying yourself into semantic knots where, logically, none exist.

[Victor Gijsbers]

Do people care about Text, or only about Meaning?

The main terms in this question have been defined by TonyLB as follows:

Meaning: The extent to which a past fact can be used as part of a player appeal for authority to narrate future facts."
Text: the SIS itself.

Which makes the question of the topic boil down to:

Do people care about the SIS, or only about the extent to which the SIS can be used as a source for authority to change the SIS in the future?

Reformulated in such a way, the answer seems to me dead simple: we care most about the SIS. We wouldn't care about changing the SIS if we did not care about the SIS, right?

Now, I think that the original question may seem - or may be - deeper than this reformulation because of the horrid terminology that has been introduced in this discussion. First, the equation of 'meaning' with 'authority' is very unnatural. Obviously, on a very natural meaning of 'meaning', the meaning of a scene may be that Jim chose the good of the community over his personal friendship, whereas the narration can only be appealed to for establishing causal facts concerning the physical outcome of the conflict. Second, the equation of SIS and Text is not very happy either, because the imagined space cannot be a text. I would be tempted to say (and actually said in a recent topic) that the imagining going on in an RPG is the creation of an imagined space from the bare text; a process which might also be described as the creation of meaning from the text. But this meaning has nothing to do with authority.

We can, of course, discuss using the definitions of 'text' and 'meaning' given above, but I am afraid that many associations with other definitions of these words will play a role in the background.

[TonyLB]

Reformulated in such a way, the answer seems to me dead simple: we care most about the SIS. We wouldn't care about changing the SIS if we did not care about the SIS, right?

Wow!  The formulation does sound fun that way.

But I disagree with you.  I care intensely about my ability to contribute to the SIS, and I don't give a tinker's damn about the SIS itself.

[Victor Gijsbers]

But I disagree with you.  I care intensely about my ability to contribute to the SIS, and I don't give a tinker's damn about the SIS itself.

This strikes me as strange. Could you explain it some more?

I mean, how can you care about being able to add "And now the cowboy shoots the gangster!" to the SIS, if you do not care about the cowboy shooting the gangster?

[Vaxalon]

I think you're weird that way, Tony...

[TonyLB]

Because being able to add that element to the SIS (and have it appreciated and validated) is a real interaction, between real people.  Whereas the cowboy and the gangster are fictional.  They're tools at best.

I like some of my tools.  I think Vanessa Faust, for instance, is a great character:  She's sly and she's evil and she's just close enough to being right all the time that it makes it really hard for anyone to dismiss her.  All of that means that (in the context of the game I'm playing) people encourage me to bring her in and to do all sorts of wacky things that they'd never consider letting me do if she weren't so entertaining.  She's a good tool.

I don't care whether she wears boxers or briefs.  I don't care whether she likes sushi or tempura.  These things are completely irrelevant to her usefulness as a tool for the social interactions between the real, physical, players.

Does that make more sense of what I'm saying?

[John Harper]

Makes sense to me, Tony. I appreciate that style of play, myself.

(Sometimes. Other times I want full "immersion" and such. It ain't a religion.)

[Vaxalon]

Does that make more sense of what I'm saying?

It makes MORE sense... but you DO seem to care that she's right all the time, and that's text too, just like boxers or briefs.

[charles ferguson]

Victor wrote

First, the equation of 'meaning' with 'authority' is very unnatural. Obviously, on a very natural meaning of 'meaning', the meaning of a scene may be that Jim chose the good of the community over his personal friendship,...

'Obvious' to who? 'Natural' to who? Four different people at the table = four different takes on what something that just 'occurred' in the SIS means. Sometimes these 4 takes may be mildly divergent, at other times, wildly so. But always, always different.

And that's even when we all agree on what the 'fact' in question was.

Whose meaning influences the SIS most strongly--such that it becomes part (as closely as may be) of what's 'shared'? That's where authority comes in.

...whereas the narration can only be appealed to for establishing causal facts concerning the physical outcome of the conflict.

No. Facts only become important once they have meaning (or perhaps more properly, potential meaning?) attached to them by the participants. And they are only debated, I propose, as a prelude (or a prop) to establishing or denying a particular meaning. On their own, facts are utterly irrelevent. I think this may be the meat of the issue.

[charles ferguson]

Tony, it just occurred to me:

This may be exactly what you're talking about when you say in Capes:

You can DO anything you want. But you can't ACHIEVE anything you want.

where DOING = having your facts accepted into the SIS

and

ACHIEVING = having your meaning of those facts accepted

In other words, when any fact can (pretty much) be introduced into the SIS without effort, and the focus for conflict is then blatantly & explicitly about what those facts then mean--it becomes patently obvious that facts are just bricks: of interest only in terms of what you can build form them. The shape you give those bricks, that in turn shapes the architecture of the SIS--that's meaning.

So when we debate what facts should go into the SIS, what we're really debating is what meaning should go there.

Why are we then debating the facts? Because we either (wrongly) believe that these are are somehow the same thing, or else we believe that acceptance of the first is a neccesary first step to acceptance of the second.

Does this make sense to anyone else?

[Vaxalon]

I'm not going to start talking about Capes again.

It's pointless.

[Victor Gijsbers]

Hi charles, I'm quite sure I don't get what you're saying. I was pointing to the fact that on some natural (natural to speakers of English) definitions of 'meaning', there may be obvious (obvious to the players of the hypothetical game) situation in which the meaning of an event in the SIS is something different from the 'way in which the event can be appealed to for authority'. As far as I can see, the fact that interpretations may often differ does not have anything to do with this semantic claim I was making?

Facts only become important once they have meaning (or perhaps more properly, potential meaning?) attached to them by the participants.

Meaning in the sense of TonyLB? (Because I submit that adding anything to the shared text that does not have meaning in the common sense of that word is pretty hard; try to say something meaningless to your roleplaying group and have it accepted as part of the narration.) That meaning is 'potential to generate further facts'.

What you are claiming, then, is, among other things, that the final event of a game is never important. (Because it will not be used to generate further facts.) The epilogues of My Life with Master are not important. Well, I disagree.

I strongly suspect that we are debating a non-issue here, which is created by the very peculiar use of the word 'meaning' in this topic. Let's call authority 'authority', and leave 'meaning' for 'the role the fact plays in the imaginating of the fictional world'. I am the first to agree with anyone that meaning in this sense is seperated in an interesting way from mere text; for the text can remain the same while the meaning (in this sense) is changed by new text that is added; or even by extra-textual factors. Absolutely. This is an important process. (Which actually plays a lead role in the game I'm currently designing.) But it's not what this topic is about, it seems to me.