Beyond crediblity

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Callan, you may need to utilize the famous Forge horse trough. The one in which people periodically go and dunk their heads.

Let me give you a for-instance ... what if you post the most brilliant, relevant, and appropriate idea imaginable. I mean, it blows the lid off of all the theory, it solves hundreds of people's problems with play, and lays groundwork for hundreds of designers.

And no one agrees with you. All sorts of people post and say, "Pooey on Callan, he's wrong." I post and say, "Oh no, it doesn't fit the theory as it stands," or something like that. You stand there in the wilderness with your lantern just burning forlornly.

You know what? You might just have to say that it's OK when that happens.

I cannot count the times I've posted stuff which garnered massive rejections, then over the next year, seemed somehow to become part of what everyone was talking about. This has happened so many times that I've given up even trying to get acknowledged for it, because the group-memory will only recall the social disagreement, even though it's incorporated what it remembers disagreeing with.

Your most stress-free, most constructive tactic at this time is to make sure that you're saying exactly what you mean to say, and to let all of the responses just wash on over you. If you feel as if you're being misjudged, misread, or misunderstood, well, all I can say is, take a number and wait for your ideas (rather than recognition of you personally) to infiltrate the culture. You'll be in good company.

Best,
Ron

[Alan]

'Why the players consent' isn't part of this issue/thread?

Ah, I see now.  We aren't talking about some wierd subversion of credibility.  We're talking about why player's might consent -- and perhaps in what situations they consent tacitly and often unanimously.

I think I can see a couple factors in each given act of consent/crediblity:

1) The players have to notice that something is being entered into the SiS.  This is easier to miss when it's an assumed consequence -- of a falling vase for example.

2) The players have to accept that the proposed entry meets the game's standards of verisimilitude in Exploration.

3) The players have to accept that the proposed entry furthers, or doesn't interfere with, their Creative Agenda.   (I think this trumps 2, by the way.)

(The ongoing debate about simulationism being a negative might arise from thinking 2 and 3 are the same thing for sim.  I don't think they are, but I haven't thought that out completely yet.)

I wonder how many different ways there are to pass a proposal through all these?

[Valamir]

Now, if you want to talk about various techniques (such as devious psychological ploys) you can use to increase the likely hood of eventually being granted credibility (which is what it sounds like you're actually touching on to me), that would be a cool discussion. One can liken it to "leading the witness" in court, or a salesman playing the "3 yes statements in a row" game.

I have been talking about this from the begining!!

Sorry Callan.  I certainly didn't want to be the source of hair pulling frustration for you.

But you opened this thread by saying:

You didn't get crediblity for your intent (for the vase to be smashed), you simply triggered conclusions to be drawn in the other players mind. The other player then gave credibility to his own conclusions.

Which is IMO completely wrong.  There is no such thing as unilaterally granting yourself credibility in an RPG.  That very much ISN'T what was going on in your examples.  I like Marco's turn of phrase that whether or not credibility has been granted is indeterminate at the point where your example ends.  

Then you went on to say:

On a side note, I feel I'm right that this is beyond credibility, in that at the Forge cred's usually refered to as being exchanged between individuals, rather than granting it to oneself. But on the other hand, I think you can draw conclusions in your head and still think "Ah, that's crap!" or "Ah, that'll just make for a crap game" and not give your own conclusions cred...so credibility is still involved...just not in the way the Forge traditionally uses the term.

Which makes it sound like you think theres some gap or hole in our current understanding of how credibility works and is apportioned that you were trying to plug or draw our intention to.  When in fact, all of the points you've made so far are completely encapsulated in bog standard Lumpley Principle.

If what you REALLY want to talk about is the various whys and wherefors that a player may choose to grant credibility to a statement at the table.  The various ways and means that players can use to influence others into giving them credibility and the different sequences of events that might result in a delay of credibility granting...then as I said, that is indeed a very cool topic to discuss.  The LP just treats the granting of credibilty as a black box.  Opening that box and exploring how it actually works is a great idea for a discussion.  In which case your opening post in this thread was way out in left field somewhere and I don't at all see how it ties in with that topic.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey everyone else,

Callan won't go dunk his head in the horse trough unless you guys do it too. Give the man some space.

Best,
Ron

[Harlequin]

I think I grasp what Callan is getting at, and the essential process under there is a very interesting one from this perspective.

But I take away from it a different conclusion or viewpoint, I think.  What I see here is the distinction between functional roleplaying, and merely a systematic distribution of credibility.  In the vase example, the GM does two things.  First, he uses his own credibility to establish the vase, the railing, the push.  We're all fine with this stage, it's bog-standard cred.  Then he deliberately gives away the credibility for what comes next.  He could assert that it smashes, it would be well within his rights; he chooses not to.

In the dysfunctional play examples, he might be doing this in order to "gotcha" players with the "real" credibility distribution.  "Hah, you thought it would smash, but the true distribution of cred is that I got it, and you don't, nyah, sucka.  It's fine!"

But in the functional play examples, this approaches the phenomenon good friends have of finishing each other's sentences.  The GM is giving away that credibility as a sign and confirmation of trust.  In the minimum (realist) case, he trusts the players to draw the appropriate conclusions from the set-up, and they demonstrate those conclusions, thus building trust and consensus about the solidity of the game world.  It's a way of hiding this exchange between the words: "Ah, I get it, and in this world when you push stuff off a railing it falls down and, if fragile, breaks.  I'll pick it up from there and go with it."  "Right!  We're on the same page."  Maybe these are both true and known-true statements about the level of trust; the affirmation is still meaningful even if so.  It's like saying "I love you" to your spouse, or better yet it's like using a private joke or gesture which means "I love you."

In the slightly more developed case, this grant of trust may be done for more than affirmation reasons.  It can also be done to empower.  "I choose not to state that the vase smashes.  I trust you all to assume it breaks, unless you have a good reason to introduce something else.  If any of you do, cool, let us all know what it is."  To continue my example, this is the gaming equivalent of saying "I llllll..." to your spouse.  With the unspoken end being "I trust you to end that affectionately with '...ove you' unless you have a reason, such as a need for humour just now, to end it with something different."  (At which point if your spouse is like mine she takes the unfinished statement for the full affirmation, and then adds humour anyway since why not, saying something like "...ooooove Haagen-Dasz.  D'you want some too?")

Heck, there's an opening in the vase example for exactly the same process - take the affirmation for the fact, but inject humour through a statement known to not be serious.  This is the case when, in (say) a Gurps game, the player responds to the vase thing with "...and it bounces off down the road - boooing, boooing, boooing."  Then everyone (once recovering their straight face) plays on with the vase presumed smashed.  Trust and SIS consistency affirmed, plus bonus belly-laugh.

So the way I see it, what Callan has noted is simply a trust thing.  Rather than use (or expend) his cred on making the statement, the GM is using shared trust in our shared vision of events - which is why "things fall" is an easy one, not requiring input - and giving players the opportunity to exert their own cred, make their own statements, and contribute either by statement or simply by assumption.  Whether this is done to affirm and solidify the shared vision (vase thing in Gurps) or to literally take input (vase thing in, I dunno, Torchbearer) depends on the case, but in many - even most - cases, this sharing of trust is healthy.  Only when it's false trust is it dysfunctional.  Moreover it sounds like Callan is interested at coming at this from the perspective of a technique; "How can we use this to healthy effect?"  I've listed two very different ways above - can anyone think of others?

- Eric

[Callan S.]

Heya all,

I've got a bunch of 'Yes!' responces which don't need horse troughing.

Alan: Those three points are a really good outline. I really like how you note #3 can trump #2. Can you also imagine a table of players with different CA preferences trying to figure out what trumps what? Like some simulationists and gamists. And how each would have entirely different #3 reasons to trump #2 "Nah, if it worked that way it'd be too easy (gamism)" "But it makes SENSE for it to happen that way! (sim?)" or "YEAH, I'll get away by jumping off this 100ft cliff! I have enough HP!(gamism)" "That's...terrible! People can't just do that! (sim)"

And I would have thought 2 & 3 are the same for simulationism. Perhaps you could start up a thread for that, because I want to learn what what you have to say about that (V. curious).

Harlequin:

But in the functional play examples, this approaches the phenomenon good friends have of finishing each other's sentences.

I really like how you put it here. I can imagine how sim must be, knowing the game world so well together that you can just keep continuing the 'sentence' which is really the dream. Or gamism, where your so into exploring and two people keep trumping each others move, each feeling the impact of the others statement but also able to continue the 'sentence' with their own escalation of the ante!

I like the rest of your examples too, as sort of twists (I think) on the technique.

Ralph:

On a side note, I feel I'm right that this is beyond credibility, in that at the Forge cred's usually refered to as being exchanged between individuals, rather than granting it to oneself. But for those who might prefer seeing that it does involve cred: On the other hand, I think you can draw conclusions in your head and still think "Ah, that's crap!" or "Ah, that'll just make for a crap game" and not give your own conclusions cred...so credibility is still involved...just not in the way the Forge traditionally uses the term.

Bolded text has been added for clarification.

I thought some people might see cred at that point, and was trying to accomidate that line of thought in advance. Buuuuut no one thinks it's that way. And I'm not invested in the idea myself. Which proves one shouldn't try and second guess needs too much! Oops!

Ron:
Yes and yes. Being not understood is fine, but not understood and the threads topic being shifted "I want to talk about whats inside circles!" "Circles themselves have nothing to do with what your talking about!" "Argh!" is pretty...well, it makes a thread you can't comfortably link back to a year latter. I need to go bathe now! :)

[Silmenume]

Hey Callan,

I don't know if you officially signed off this thread or not, but if you haven't then I am posting in the right place!

First of all let me say that you are all over the topics that Chris Lehrich and I have been going on about for a year now, but from a completely and more easily understood angle.  What you described as the "moments of thought" between "those two contact points with the SIS" exactly what I have been wrestling with.  Just for reference I called that space the Affect Space borrowing from Victor Gijsbers thread Shared Imagined Space, Shared Text.

"Why players consent" IS CA in operation.  Flat out.  Now, I'm gonna take a stab here, but my interpretation, which could be completely off the mark, is that I think what you are looking for is how to capitalize or more concretely "influence" that internal process for the betterment of play.  I am not trying to put words in your mouth or trying to tell you what you are thinking, I am just trying to get a handle on what you are trying to discuss.

To me putting statements into the "Proposal Space" is the CA of a player being expressed.  Deciding which statements to make and what statements "mean" and the emotions one feels as a result of statements surviving the Proposal Space to make it into the Common/Shared Fact Space (either our own or those of the other players) is felt in the "Personal Affect Space" and is CA being felt (as it were – I'm totally open to better interpretations.  I have worked with what I think is your idea, from a different angle in these following posts – my post to the aforementioned thread by Victor, An effort to un-gum the Discussion, in a post I made in my thread Ramblings on the role of Mechanics in CA's (fishing) where I make a note on mechanics facilitating the effects of actions but not aiding in the (internal to the player) process of abduction, deduction and induction.  I am not trying to say I'm right or any kind of self promotion, but just trying to say the ideas you are working with are very similar to what I have been trying to work and I am hoping that what I can bring to your arguments can be as helpful to you as what you have posted in this thread have been helpful to me!

I would like to say that reason you were having so much trouble getting your initial idea about the space between contacts with the SIS is for the same basic reason that Sim is so devilishly difficult to conceptualize.  The irony in that is that this thread has had more comments that nearly perfectly define the Sim process than I have ever seen since I arrived here.  What is even more ironic is that those statements are not recognized as describing the Sim play process with the exception of Harlequin's above post that is almost frighteningly spot on with the personal interactions, processes, priorities and affects in the game I play in.  The notions of trust between player and GM, that the GM is purposefully creating not so much open ended sentences but open ended conflicts or situations, the idea of "building trust and consensus about the solidity of the game world," the idea that the player generated (not mechanical) affirmations are "meaningful."  The granting of trust IS empowering!

"I choose not to state that the vase smashes.  I trust you all to assume it breaks, unless you have a good reason to introduce something else.

That is the mythic style of bricolage!  The player who chooses to introduce something else is adding to the Dream.  But the $64,000 question is what motivated that player to add at this time addition/alteration and in this way (CA relevant decisions).  This is Callan's "in-between process" that he is gnawing on so hard!  If the player was playing Narrativist one could reasonably assume that choosing to add here and now is done because it somehow supports address of Premise while a similar statement could be same about a Gamist player and Challenge.  With Sim it is the primary focus, that which is prioritized, is the abductive, inductive and deductive process.  Note this process is not self-same with Exploration.  Exploration is just he "sharing of imaginings in a structured fashion."  Creative Agenda is the expression of the process of determining how that Exploration process is employed.  IOW how are all the data being poured into the Fact Space and the inferred meanings derived there from organized/prioritized?

Gamism and Narrativism are focused on the addressing process as a priority and utilize that internal personal process of abduction, induction and deduction to support the addressing process but Sim does not.  Sim focuses on the abductive, inductive and deductive process inside that personal process space that you are working on teasing out - as a priority.  Hence Sim play must, by definition, add to the world through player proactive and additive interactions, not to the passive employment of resolution mechanics.

...and Callan, like you said, this process is POWERFUL!

However everyone is right in that credibility can only be granted by others and that can only happen when the idea is shared.  That does not mean that internal process is not important.  Actually its just the opposite.  That internal space is the singularly most important aspect of play – everything in functional play is structured toward giving the players the greatest number of reasons and opportunities to utilize that internal process for a constructive and meaningful end.

Dude I am sooooo with you on this internal between contacts with the SIS (Fact space) thing!

I hope I did hijack your thread and I deeply apologize if I did, it was most certainly not my intention.  You just shot an arrow right into the 10 ring of what I have been working on and trying to unlock for quite some while.  You rock!  If I have said anything that resonates with you or if you have any questions let me know!  I won't bombard you with Sim stuff, I just wanted to try and bring other postings that I have worked on that might be supplemental to your efforts – unfortunately they are Sim focused.

[M. J. Young]

Callan, I don't find your statement credible.

Ralph has said pretty much what I wanted to say, although that stuff about the natural laws isn't important.

Player one said he pushed the vase off the balcony.

Player two then made statements that indicated his belief that the vase smashed when it hit the ground. The smashing of the vase is established by the credibility granted to player two--not by the laws of physics or any other thing, but solely because when player two implied it was smashed no one objected.

Player two could have said, "I rush over and make a great leaping catch, tucking the vase in and rolling, so that it doesn't break."

Player two could have said, "I gape in astonishment as the vase lands in the bushes around the front of the building. Cushioned by the light branches and needles, it tumbles harmlessly to the grass and lies there intact."

When player two says, "I pick up one of the pieces of the shattered vase, and then notice the pack of letter that had been hidden in it before it fell," he implies that the vase broke, and on his credibility we accept it.

It has nothing to do with him accepting his own credibility. It's not real within the shared imagined space until the other players also accept it. He makes it real by stating it. It was his choice.

Note also that the distinction between whether the vase is established as broken and whether some of the players believe the vase has broken, while an interesting aspect of the nature of our shared exploration, is not really different from reality. Let's suppose no one is at the bottom when the vase is pushed off the balcony. Every one of us assumes it broke; but at this point what we have is that we are imagining our characters believing that the vase broke. That would be exactly the same as if a vase was pushed off a real balcony and we were really standing there thinking, "Well, that's the end of that vase." We might be wrong; we've drawn a conclusion that does not control reality. Thus if any character on the balcony states that the vase must have broken, what is added to the shared imagined space is that this character believes it broke, not that it broke. Until someone with the credibility to declare the vase broken states that it is, it remains (as Marco observed) undetermined. The state of the vase is unknown, just as it would be in reality; because that state will be decided by the credible statement of one of the players, it is at this moment in a state not yet established.

*****

On the other hand, making a credible statement with the intent that it will induce or coerce someone else to make a specific other credible statement which you want entered into the shared imagined space by someone other than you is a common illusionist technique. The usual purpose is to cause the player to believe he made a decision that you had already made and fed him, thus giving him the feeling that he is in control when he is not. In this example, though, it doesn't seem to be working that way--it seems rather that the player is assuming you told him something you didn't.

I would say that the technique used here really has the function of allowing the players to perceive the most probable outcome of the last credible statement, and to decide whether to accept that outcome (by making credible statements concerning the broken vase) or attempt to counter it (by offering credible statements of actions or outcomes which might prevent the breakage). In a sense, the referee is saying, "I gave you the chance to try to save the vase, and you chose not to do so."

By contrast, the referee could have said, "He knocks the vase off the balcony and it falls to the ground and smashes." This is inherently saying, "There is nothing you can do to prevent the vase from smashing." In this the referee is spending more of his capital, as it were (now there's an idea for a thread), by insisting on enough credibility to declare the vase smashed instead of merely setting up that it's going to be smashed if no one thinks of a way to save it.

Thus it's a manipulative/illusionist technique, but it can be used to force the players to choose between accepting the obvious outcome or taking action to prevent it.

--M. J. Young

[Mike Holmes]

Jay, I read that post three times. Just to make sure that I understood what you were saying (which wasn't easy), and to make sure that I didn't miss anything. What it seems to boil down to is the standard definition of Sim that we've always used around here.

Yes, I think that it's fascinating to see how credibility links up with CA. And, yes, it's what players do as the process of trying to determine what to get into the SIS that's what makes a particular CA entertaining to them (though it's not at all neccessarily the "most important" thing that you make it, IMO). But how is this not just the "prioritization" that's always mentioned with CA?

Mike

[Callan S.]

Jay! Man! That's so dead on! And now I have to go jump in the horse trough because your post is BETTER than mine! Your asking if I want to influence this process...man, I'm only just grappling with this idea, while the idea of influencing it was only a roughly envisioned next step for me! I think you must be ahead here if your already thinking about that! How did I help you at all? Your so dead on I can't imagine how I could?

The notions of trust between player and GM, that the GM is purposefully creating not so much open ended sentences but open ended conflicts or situations, the idea of "building trust and consensus about the solidity of the game world," the idea that the player generated (not mechanical) affirmations are "meaningful." The granting of trust IS empowering!

This is what I was trying to get at in Tony's post, when I argued against the idea of facts having authority (but not arguing against his overall point): Meaning in the middle, beginning and end

Sim focuses on the abductive, inductive and deductive process inside that personal process space that you are working on teasing out - as a priority. Hence Sim play must, by definition, add to the world through player proactive and additive interactions, not to the passive employment of resolution mechanics.

I agree, but as Alan noted, although sim focuses on these processes, his #3 point can still trump #2. I'd like to hear more from him on that (probably best in a new thread). Since I think although simulationists are focused on this process, if you were to ask them "If it made absolute game world sense to, would you bring something boring into the game?" its a really problematic question. It's just my opinion, but I think the sim agenda is all about learning...and Alans point #3 will trump #2, when these processes bring something not worth learning into the game.

I would like to say that reason you were having so much trouble getting your initial idea about the space between contacts with the SIS is for the same basic reason that Sim is so devilishly difficult to conceptualize.

I think its because if you don't make a choice during this point, it's hard to notice that you did anything at all. For nar or gamism, your shaping it toward the climax of each. For sim, except for my boredom idea, you don't make any choice at all. So you don't recognise its you making a choice. It's like 1 + 1...you just work out that it makes 2. No decision during that process, makes it feel like your mind didn't do anything toward the result. For nar or gamism, 1 + 1 might equal 2.5, because the game just works better for the agenda that way. For sim, 1 + 1 = 2...and because it equals two, it doesn't feel like agenda is going on there because nothing is put out of place to get the agenda "You just get two!". I think this is why some people are having trouble seeing what this thread is about. They see the cred, but look past the 1 + 1 process that's going on.

Thanks for your considerable post! I'd really like to hear more from you about anything on this topic or anything I've written here! Sim orientated stuff is fine! :)



To all,

Tony noted to me how it can be very hard to see something next to a very bright light. Like trying to see the man who is standing behind and operating a massive search light.

Imagine this:
GM shouts "1 plus 1!"
Micro pause
Player is compelled to shout "Equals 2!"

Here you can see the GM ask for cred for the set up of "1 plus 1!" and the player then ask for cred for his statement "Equals 2!". But that doesn't matter to this thread at all! Were looking at what happened during that micro pause. That's all this thread is really about, even while the credibility around it seems far more important and far brighter.

Were looking at what compelled him to say it equals two. "Well, 1 plus 1 equals 2!, that's all!" is not an answer to this question. It is actually just another example of the exact same exchange from above. Every time I ask "What compelled him to say it equals two" and you answer "1 plus 1 just equals two!", you are not asking yourself 'what compelled me to give the answer of two?'. Instead you are giving an example of the compulsion to answer "Two!".

This thread is about dissecting that compulsion "One plus one just equals two!" is not dissecting the compulsion, it's living that compulsion. Matrix style, just pretend the truth behind "1 + 1 = 2" is like the spoon...pretend that its not really there and it can bend...1 + 1 = 3.  1+ 1 = 5.  1 + 1 = 100203.

Now ask yourself why you don't want to bend it? Why do you want one plus one to always equal two? Why you would never, EVER normally let it add up to three? You are now looking at your compulsion. If you prefer, call it something other than compulsion (since it seems a bit of a negative term). But what were looking at is : why you would normally, never, ever let it add up to three?

If you can only say "Because it only ever adds up to two!" (or worse, say this then shift the topic onto cred), then you are living your compulsion, not examining it. This isn't of any use to this thread, like someone who insists on talking only about their characters motivations isn't any use to a thread about player motivations. Before I got snippy, sorry all. But now I've worked out some guidelines for the thread, instead of a temper tantrum from me, that's the guideline to work from.

[C. Edwards]

Well, at the most basic, people want the world to make sense. So 1+1=2 and we can assume that the vase broke when it fell from the balcony.

In gaming the basic need for the world to make sense gets tweaked. What makes sense is altered by genre, setting, and system. But there is always a default foundation of "what would happen in the real world?" constantly in effect, just beneath the surface. It's necessary for any sort of actual play because no game system can account for every possible imaginary event instigated by the players.

Our real world experience and expectations are the foundation of our play experience because there is a constant referencing going on when we play. The imagination and extrapolation required for play is all based upon our knowledge of the real world with adjustments made based upon our knowledge of the setting, genre, and system being used for play.

The extrapolations between cause and effect that we make during play are going to generally run along fairly mundane, real world lines. Gems of outlandish creativity will be interspersed among them, but I think that most 'unreal' proposals may be directly inspired by setting, genre, and system.

-Chris

[Walt Freitag]

Imagine this:
GM shouts "1 plus 1!"
Micro pause
Player is compelled to shout "Equals 2!"

I imagine this instead:
GM shouts "1 plus 1!"
Micro pause
Player says, 'Dude, why did you just shout '1 plus 1'?"

I'm not just being contrary in proposing that alternatve version. It leads to my point: I don't believe the compulsion you speak of, to draw conclusions, exists. Or at least, it's not universal. My players, for whatever reason, tend to be very open-minded about facts not explicilty established:

GM: The vase falls from the balcony, out of sight.
Player: Do any of us hear it break?

That example, which is very typical in my experience, clearly shows a reluctance on the player's part to draw conclusions until facts are credibly established.

But underneath these examples, there is a compulsion involved after all. No matter what kind of world we're playing in, we have to be able to communicate about it in order to play. The thread topic is "beyond credibility," but what you're really talking about here is "before credibility." Before there can be credibility, there must be communication. THAT is a "compulsion" we can't get away from.

One plus one equals two is all but mandatory because the only definition (mathematical or linguistic) there is for "two" is "the integer successor to one" -- that is, what you get when you add one to one. If one plus one is something other than two, we've either given the defined concept of the integer successor to one a different name, which is trivial so why bother to do it, or we've established that nothing in the game world can be quantitatively described or bounded, which makes it too alien a universe to communicate about.

Suppose you establish that in a game world we're playing in, 1+1=3. Then I should be able to say: "I pick up a rock in one hand. I pick up another rock in my other hand. I now have three hands with rocks in them, so I throw one of the rocks. I now have one empty hand and three hands with rocks in them, so I throw another rock. I now have three empty hands and three hands with rocks in them..."

Now, at any point you (as the player who established 1+1=3) can interrupt this chain of reasoning and say, "No, that's you just being compelled to conclude things again," and disallow my statements. But that will do one of three things: you will contradict 1+1=3; or your new rulings will lead to even more absurd possibilities, until neither of us can comprehend how this world actually works; or you'll convince me that I cannot draw any logical implications from your statements at all -- which is to say, that your statements were meaningless from the get-go and I've been wasting my time listening to you. In the latter two cases, we have lost the ability to communicate, and we cannot play.

Or, you can let me keep going unti I've demonstrated that not only does my character have an infinite number of hands, but he's everywhere in the game world simultaneously and both is and is not Millard Filmore. Would we be communicating anything comprehensible then, if we were to continue?

As you yourself said, the vase example is fundamentally the same. The reasons players surmise that when a vase falls off the balcony, in a game set in (say) present-day New York City, it falls down instead of up has only remotely to do with assumptions about cause and effect in the game world; it has much more to do with assumptions about clear and honest communication. Players have a right to assume that it fell down because if it fell up and you didn't mention that fact, it would be dishonest communication. And they have a need to assume that it fell down because the communication bandwidth is too narrow to state every detail explicitly. It's really that simple.

- Walt

[Valamir]

As you yourself said, the vase example is fundamentally the same. The reasons players surmise that when a vase falls off the balcony, in a game set in (say) present-day New York City, it falls down instead of up has only remotely to do with assumptions about cause and effect in the game world; it has much more to do with assumptions about clear and honest communication. Players have a right to assume that it fell down because if it fell up and you didn't mention that fact, it would be dishonest communication. And they have a need to assume that it fell down because the communication bandwidth is too narrow to state every detail explicitly. It's really that simple.

Exactly...which is why I tried to illustrate the connection between presumed natural laws and presumed rules in the game book.  Players have a right to assume that the vase fell down instead of up, just as players have a right to assume that a +1 sword will give them a +1 to hit and to damage.  

I hadn't made the leap that what was underlying this connection was honest vs. dishonest communication but I think that's probably exactly what it is.

[Callan S.]

GM: The vase falls from the balcony, out of sight.
Player: Do any of us hear it break?

That example, which is very typical in my experience, clearly shows a reluctance on the player's part to draw conclusions until facts are credibly established.

No, it shows the players being compelled to think 'vases make a smashing sound when they hit the ground'

Their using this assumption to then question you, is irrelavant to this topic. Were looking at how they were compelled to make this assumption, not how they then went on to then use their assumption.

GM shouts "1 plus 1!"
Micro pause
Player says, 'Dude, why did you just shout '1 plus 1'?"

Examples of the players rejecting the set up statements are about cred and off topic. If you want to discuss what their thinking when they reject it, something like "What does he mean, 1 plus 1? *compulsion*It equals two*/compulsion*. Doesn't he know 2 will make for a worse game?" that's on topic.

But underneath these examples, there is a compulsion involved after all. No matter what kind of world we're playing in, we have to be able to communicate about it in order to play. The thread topic is "beyond credibility," but what you're really talking about here is "before credibility." Before there can be credibility, there must be communication. THAT is a "compulsion" we can't get away from.

One plus one equals two is all but mandatory because the only definition (mathematical or linguistic) there is for "two" is "the integer successor to one" -- that is, what you get when you add one to one.

Please check the thread guidelines above. You have not examined what you've said is 'manditory', you've stated it to me instead. If you want to say "If I said 1 + 1 = 3, I'd feel I was going nuts and couldn't abide that!" your on topic. You've also pushed the discussion toward cred. Both are a no go for this thread now, seriously.

Players have a right to assume that it fell down because if it fell up and you didn't mention that fact, it would be dishonest communication.

This thread isn't about players rights to assume. It's about what they are compelled to assume. How other people treat their assumptions after they are communicated is a side topic (at best) for this thread.

[Walt Freitag]

GM: The vase falls from the balcony, out of sight.
Player: Do any of us hear it break?

That example, which is very typical in my experience, clearly shows a reluctance on the player's part to draw conclusions until facts are credibly established.

No, it shows the players being compelled to think 'vases make a smashing sound when they hit the ground'

No, your argument only shows you being compelled to think that a player asking 'Do any of us hear it break?' shows the players being compelled to think 'vases make a smashing sound when they hit the ground.'

In other words, what you're calling 'being compelled to think' is what most people usually just call 'thinking.' If you're asking for an explanation of why people think, I can't help you.

Examples of the players rejecting the set up statements are about cred and off topic.

The player in that example didn't reject the statement, he didn't understand the statement and said so. That's what I meant by communication before credibility.

Please check the thread guidelines above.

To hell with it. I cannot possibly contribute anything to this topic under the proviso that anything I say can be arbitrarily labeled 'about credibility' and therefore 'against the thread guidelines' when I mentioned nothing whatsoever about credibility. And I doubt anyone else can either (though I'll gladly watch with amusement should they try). Bye.

- Walt