(Accepting/Rejecting) x (Text/Meaning)

[Callan S.]

Hi Tony and Charles,

I'm just not comfortable with the word authority. I'd prefer something like "appealing for consent to narrate the SIS". I just think it's an important difference in personal dynamics.

This is how I think of authority: Have you ever read about the funny occasions where a captain is ordering around his troops in formation, but then walks off, leaving them in formation. And then some lower rank guy just sneaks up behind them, so they can't see him. And he starts ordering them around. And they do it.

He was appealing for authority. He wasn't appealing for consent. He wasn't saying 'I'm a low rank guy like you guys...now do these manouvers!'.

Consent requires a certain two way honesty on both sides about what's wanted from both parties. Authority isn't like that at all, authority is like an accepted empty void waiting for someone to step into it, like in my example. I don't think that typifies roleplay relationships at all (though perhaps some groups do it that way...dunno if it's possible to really keep up though).

I'm stuffing up Tony's thread a bit here, taking up space getting all niggly on this (sorry). But I don't think authority really represents the relationship involved between players. And without authority being involved, I mention investment and ransom, to show how things are made to happen when faceless authority isn't involved.

And Tony, yeah, I see all those examples as barrel examples! I'll go into that further if you think it wont derail the thread (if you want me to, tell me which you think are barrels and which aren't).

[Callan S.]

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.

He cares about her being right all the time (I presume), because of a very meta game reason: It effects other RL people. Effecting other people is the primary goal, 'being right all the time' is important only as a means to that end.

You could have those goals the other way around, that 'her being right all the time' is the primary goal/of utmost importance. While that effecting other real life people is a means to supporting that end/getting it into the SIS. I swear I'm seeing the nar&gamism Vs sim divide illustrated sharply here.

But Tony needs to keep this in mind even as he says he doesn't care about her. If his goal is to effect me with her, why the hell would I care about her if he doesn't care about her himself? Even as he tries to use her as a tool with cool subjectivity, she becomes useless as that tool for that reason. So he has to be invested in her as real to a great degree, even though his primary goal isn't to just do that. I guess that's why Ron floats GNS on a sea of exploration.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Quote:
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'.

For instance, the GM says that to get from Milbourne to Parlfrey the players must walk a dirt path.  The players walk it and get there without incident.  Does it matter that they traveled a path instead of a road?  Does it matter that there might have been woods on one side?  In that instance, no.  Neither the fact that the path was dirt nor the fact that the woods had trees came into play.  Therefore, they had no Meaning in the sense Tony is using that term.  Now, if it mattered that the path was dirt because the PCs wanted to track a pack of wolves that crossed it, then the path would have meaning because the fact it was dirt and therefore could hold tracks was appealed to.  There are lots of things casually introduced into a SIS that have no real meaning (or consiquence) until they are re-introduced or appealed to in order to modify the SIS.

Peace,

-Troy

[TonyLB]

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.

Cool.  That's a point we can explore.  Suppose the MLwM epilogue rules say that my minion dies horribly at the hands of a mob.  I agree with that, but narrate further that he dies setting off explosives that kill a large number of villagers (not including anyone's Connections, or any other element which could accord Meaning or affect any other Minion's Miserably-Ever-After endings).  Is there any motive for another player to argue that narration?

[TonyLB]

For instance, the GM says that to get from Milbourne to Parlfrey the players must walk a dirt path.  The players walk it and get there without incident.  Does it matter that they traveled a path instead of a road?  Does it matter that there might have been woods on one side?  In that instance, no.

I don't want to take the examples out to full sketches of play (because Actual Play is always better for that anyway), but consider the exchange if that walk along the dirt path unexpectedly is appealed to later (i.e. given potential Meaning).

GM:  A-hah!  Now, because you didn't take the extra day to go around to the Marble Way, the Cerulean tracking guild can follow your foot-prints.  Suckers!
Players:  Oh, no WAY... we totally would have been cautious about that.  When you said dirt path, it had to be a packed dirt path, or you should have said something!  That's just fiddling us about with word-play, man.

I see this all the time in many social contracts.  People don't object to the SIS-contribution at the time, but if it becomes the basis for an appeal for Authority that they dislike then the past Text itself suddenly becomes objectionable in retrospect.  "I would have been more concerned about it if I thought it would be important!"

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

GM:  A-hah!  Now, because you didn't take the extra day to go around to the Marble Way, the Cerulean tracking guild can follow your foot-prints.  Suckers!
Players:  Oh, no WAY... we totally would have been cautious about that.  When you said dirt path, it had to be a packed dirt path, or you should have said something!  That's just fiddling us about with word-play, man.

I see this all the time in many social contracts.  People don't object to the SIS-contribution at the time, but if it becomes the basis for an appeal for Authority that they dislike then the past Text itself suddenly becomes objectionable in retrospect.  "I would have been more concerned about it if I thought it would be important!"

Yep, I agree.  So just so I know I'm understanding things right, the fact that it was a dirt path they traveled didn't have meaning until the GM said, "A-hah!  Now, because you didn't take the extra day to go around to the Marble Way, the Cerulean tracking guild can follow your foot-prints.  Suckers!"

No one thought about it, and it was just taken for granted what it was.  Just like we often take things like gravity, the sun rising in the east, a magnetic North in the North, and so on for granted.  Until it becomes significant to the plot, it's irrelevant.  Correct?

Peace,

-Troy

[TonyLB]

Correct.  The Meaning (in the terminology I'm using) is posited here in the moment that the road is used to support the addition of something new into the SIS.

[Victor Gijsbers]

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.

Cool.  That's a point we can explore.  Suppose the MLwM epilogue rules say that my minion dies horribly at the hands of a mob.  I agree with that, but narrate further that he dies setting off explosives that kill a large number of villagers (not including anyone's Connections, or any other element which could accord Meaning or affect any other Minion's Miserably-Ever-After endings).  Is there any motive for another player to argue that narration?

To argue it? No, I do not think so. (Unless you are doing violence to the colour of the game.) But does that mean it is not important? Would you say that this means that it is not important? As a player, I am very interested in the epilogues of the other players' minions. They are the closure of the story; they have huge aesthetic value.

Maybe that sums up an important part of my position: the SIS can have aesthetic value quite apart from all structures of authority (from all meaning). Players can have an interest in this aesthetic value.

Do you disagree with that?

[Vaxalon]

Correct.  The Meaning (in the terminology I'm using) is posited here in the moment that the road is used to support the addition of something new into the SIS.

So what you're talking about is the quality of setting precedent.

I say that ALL contributions to the SIS have the potential for setting precedent, by definition, and that it is impossible to accurately predict what another player will remember and (at a later time) find important enough to use as precedent.

[Victor Gijsbers]

I say that ALL contributions to the SIS have the potential for setting precedent, by definition, and that it is impossible to accurately predict what another player will remember and (at a later time) find important enough to use as precedent.

But he may not be allowed to use it as precedent.

Take Universalis. You cannot call on any element of the SIS for which noone has paid a coin. I mean, you can name it, but it won't help you win any conflicts. It doesn't have authority. So in Universalis, one can add elements to the SIS without giving them authority/meaning.

Of course, I would say that in Universalis narration for which no coins are paid can be pretty important and valuable - think of your last Universalis game and take out the dialogues! - but I suppose that is were Tony wants to draw a line and say: only the process of coins is really important. The underlying narration is merely so much decoration. (Do I understand you correctly, Tony?)

[Vaxalon]

Universalis is weird that way.  Most games do not have a formal mechanic for that.

[charles ferguson]

Hi Victor,

You wrote:

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.

I have to say here: absolutely--and maybe.

"Absolutely", because when I re-read your posts, and this thread you referenced earlier, I realised that I'd misread your point entirely. You were (correctly) using the word 'meaning' as Tony had defined it, and I wasn't. And I agree, I don't think we have any argument here.

But: "Maybe", because I suspect the confusion may actually be important to this topic.
I say this because I've tried to formulate a sensible response to Tony's original question using his terms 'Text' and 'Meaning', & I simply can't. I'm not talking about a 'valid' or 'insightful' or 'accurate' response--I just mean one that actually makes some kind of coherent sense.

To go back to Tony's original question:

Is Text qua Text ever the focus of concern? Or is it the matter of apparent concern because of its uses as a tool for impacting later negotiations of authority over the SIS?

Or, short-form: Do people care about Text, or only about Meaning?

When I try to answer this I feel like I'm trying to build a picture frame with nothing but two sledgehammers. Before I can even begin I need to go back to the hardware store & swap one of them for, say, a claw-hammer & a saw, and the other for some wood & nails & glue.

To me, we're actually talking about
(1) events being inserted into the SIS, and
(2) the significance of those events to the participants.
And both "Text" & "Meaning" refer to BOTH (1) & (2). Which would explain why I'm confused.

[Note: I'm using the term "significance" here only to avoid confusion with the current use of "meaning"]

If I look at Tony's question in these terms, I could reformulate it as:

A. 'Do people believe that establishing an event in the SIS is, in and of itself, somehow significant?'

or:

B. 'Do people believe the real significance of the SIS is what's actually created, or the process of shared creation?'

My take on (A) is, people often DO care about establishing events into the SIS in and of itself--but only because they see this as synonymous with establishing significance. I see this as a tremendously important point, because it gives rise to the mistaken belief that once an (explict) event is established in the SIS, an (implicit) significance is also established, which leads to all kinds of messy complications later (like "breaking" the SIS). It can also lead to strenuous objections over the inclusion of seemingly trivial events, because what is really being objected to is the unspoken (& in this situation, unshared) significance the objector sees as being inserted along with that event. Which, because it's never articulated, can be wearying to resolve.

My answer to (B) is, light is both a wave and a particle (Tony, mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery :). The SIS is both what's Shared and what's Imagined, both process and content, and they're both important to me at different times. I care about them both. What's more important to me? I honestly don't know.

Taking this further, I suspect that the link between event->significance can be expanded through the metagame level, including CA.

ie:

(player A sees event 1 = Nar significance) + (player B sees event 1 = Sim significance) = CA clash

[TonyLB]

Yeah, I see where you're going there.  But let me intrude a little of my own motivations for how I'm writing.  This is not meant to say "This is the right way to discuss things."  It's simply so that, as you folks read my posts, you can see why certain wordings are important to me, and like that.

I would like to deal, as much as possible, with measurable phenomena.  I realize that not all of the RPG experience is measurable.  But for teminology that is foundational (as these early posts in my hopefully-useful quest for a theory of Situation Development are) I'd like to stick as closely to what can be objectively observerd as we can.

So Text, by my definitions:  I can measure that.  Meaning, by my definitions:  I can measure that.  I can look at events from anyone's viewpoint, or from a wholly external viewpoint, and still see the same dynamics of Text and Meaning.

Once you hit questions like "significance", "importance" and "aesthetics", you're no longer in that measurable territory.  Which means (I think) that much of the discussion will center around people's inability to use the terms in any common way, or to refer to any common experience.  That's not the style of conversation that I get the most use out of, personally.

[charles ferguson]

Hey Tony,

Keep the discussion centered as much as possible on the measurable? Fine with me.

My problem is, I see these words as all pretty much synonyms for each other:
significance
aesthetics (sometimes)
importance
care about
have it appreciated and validated

which makes nonsense out of any attempt I make to contribute a meaningful reply. When I can use the phrase 'care about' but not 'significant', what am I supposed to think I'm actually saying, when to me the two statements are identical?

If to me, X = Y, and you say 'You can use X here, but Y is totally off-limits' then I'm left with

X = ?  Y = ?

An example:

When you say

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

that, to me, is moving directly into the area of 'significance, importance, & aesthetics'. And that's not only good, its neccesary in order to draw any meaningful conclusions from this discussion. Except--I can't follow you there, cos that's venturing into your definition of 'immeasurables'.

As an aside, I disagree that it is all immeasurable. How is 'Story Now' not an aesthetic? And since we're talking within the context of actual play (aren't we?) CA is certainly measurable.

Or to put it another way: I don't know how can I answer the question 'Do people care about Text or just Meaning' without showing why I think they do or don't, and how they do/don't, unless I give you a single-word post "Yes" which I'm sure isn't what you're after. So I have to say 'Yes, because...'

And I don't know how to continue after 'because...' without going beyond your definitions of Text/Meaning and exploring their implications. Which is to say, delving into the area of significance, importance, & aesthetics.

Does any of this make sense to you?

[TonyLB]

Absolutely.  The moment I hit "care about" I knew I was out of measured territory (though possibly not out of measurable territory).

My hope is that, venturing into that uncharted territory, we can discuss the uncharted with a basis in the things that we can measure.  And hopefully, through exploration, we can actually figure out whether there's something in this "care about" and "significance" and "aesthetics" that can be reasonably measured.  The uncharted territory would then have a chart, because of our exploration of the theory.  That process lets us advance on yet another area of the unknown, and explore it with common purpose.

I mean, just as a for-instance, suppose popular opinion ended up at:  "Creative Agenda is expressed in the decisions players make about how to distribute Authority.  Therefore Text does not impact Creative Agenda, but Meaning does (point for further discussion: is this true of Simulationism, or only Gamism and Narrativism?)"  That would be a really strong design tool in my toolbox.  Unfortunately, I don't think that particular example is true (or at least popular).

So yeah... this exploration is going to have to be fuzzy.  We don't have terms yet.  And I value contributions like "That's just not aesthetically pleasing to me", and "I couldn't play in a game where Text was unimportant until it had Meaning."  But I will treasure the post where somebody says "What you're talking about is this measurable phenomenon", and everyone responds "Well, yeah, obviously, but that's just another way of saying what I've been telling you for twenty posts."

Heh... meta-parallels.  I enjoy and appreciate this discussion, but I am hoping to have some outcome that I can appeal to for Authority (or at least theoretical leverage) in future discussions.  I value the Meaning more than the Text.