Teaching Creative Agenda

[Paganini]

Vincent, I'm delighted to engage you in any form of discussion on any RPG-related subject. I was kinda hoping that this thread could remain firmly an exercise in Ron teaching. So, I do still want to hear from Ron, but it's not because "oh, gee, Vincent's not Ron, so he must not know anything." I still think you're awesome too. :)

I'm kinda... trying to shake things up a little, in hopes that we can discount the notion that the Big Model is a mass of incomprehensable nonsense, and, ideally, keep it from *becoming* a mass of incomprehensable nonsense, which I fear it is in danger of doing. And if I can further my own understanding of individual vs. group CA, well WOOHOO!

[Paganini]

Well, that's really strange. Somehow, my pre-editing draft of my last message was posted, and there doesn't seem to be any way to edit or delete it!

[Ron Edwards]

No. Well, maybe. I think I was mucking up the second question (social vs. individual) with bagage from the third question (instance vs. instant)

Hiya,

Point #1: What Vincent says is correct. Instead of repeating or paraphrasing, I'll just say, "What he said" and expect that it's to be included with everything I'm saying next.

I gotta say, everything you say about instance/instant means very little to me. I can't quite see why you're talking about it, where it's coming from, and so on. From the very first day I posted System Does Matter, I was thinking about big ol' arcs of satisfaction and participation, and this fascination with "Bludgeon-Man hits Ultra-Weasel! Is that Gamist?" has kept tripping me up from all the way back then. I even made the problem worse when I tried to help people back on the Gaming Outpost, because 800 people were reading the posts and extrapolating any last word into every possible micro-moment of play they could imagine. That directly led, I think, to the current perception of the Cult of Ron composed of "what it means at the moment" groupies. 'Course, I did help a lot of people invidually, too.

Anyway, I suggest jettisoning instants as a direct Creative Agenda indicator. Yes, of course instances are composed of instants. I hope you can see that "instants" now have a name, specifically Ephemera, and the Big Model is built, in part, specifically to keep us from getting all hung up about Bludgeon-Man's action. We can recognize that Ephemera are often indicative, but also that we do not have to (and cannot) classify them individually by GNS and counting their little noses to arrive at a conclusion.

I also hope you can see that historically, I asked about all those "instants" from people, and still do, using this logic:

"What happened in that fight?"
"Bludgeon-Man hit Ultra-Boy! It was rad!"
"Why was it rad?" (answer)
"Did the GM or anyone else say anything?" (answer) ... and so on ...
... evolving eventually to things like "How does such an action factor into resolving stuff during play, with you guys? What sort of stuff? Does anyone sulk when that stuff comes up? Do people make suggestions about that stuff?" and so on.

I use these questions, the later one, to help the person evaluate the Creative Agenda, if any.

But I do not use this logic:

"What happened in that fight?"
"Bludgeon-Man hit Ultra-Weasel! It was rad!"
"Why was it rad?" (answer all about tactics and guts and ego)
"Oh, that's Gamist. So does that happen a lot?"
"All the time, except when we describe stuff or get involved in the whole family-issue thing."
"Ah, so if you have lots and lots of those, and they outnumber all those Sim and Narr instants, then the whole thing is Gamist."

I'll stick to my guns, this time. This really is an "all the way back to the beginning" point. Gamers' intense emotional reactions during moments of play, and their need either to be praised for them or called on whatever bullshit social-game they were playing at the moment, are very strong. They wanted to talk about that, and what I was trying to talk about was lost as we always hit upon fucked-up Social Contracts as revealed by those moments. So people rarely "graduated" to talking about any kind of play in terms of agenda as I wanted to discuss. Hundreds of threads, thousands of posts. It's been a long six years, man.

This part's way better.

Now then, individual vs. group. If this group concept of CA means, like, making a big list of the differences and similarities that each player's um... personal CA has when compared the CA of each other player, and trying to maximize the similarities while minimizing the differences, then I am cool. We're moving from generalizations (how people think) to practical applications (how to get better play). Is this a fair characterization of the sports analogy

Good enough. Although I would like to reinforce the idea that your personal CA is not a "thing" in the same way that the ultimately-produced, "actualized" group CA is. No more than your personal desire to win prior to starting a sports event is anything to get noted in the history book, until after we see how it got "actualized" during the interactions with others on the field.

(I hate that word "actualized." But unfortunately the perfect and classically accurate use of the word "realized" for what I want to say is not commonly employed in English anymore.)

I think that covers your question. Let me know.

Best,
Ron

P.S. About shaking things up - that's wonderful you think that. I'm glad, because it starts a dialogue. But I want to clarify that my only priority at this point is your understanding. Don't represent what you think others are confused about, or even right about objecting to. Ask about your issues alone.

[Paganini]

I hope you can see that "instants" now have a name, specifically Ephemera, and the Big Model is built, in part, specifically to keep us from getting all hung up about Bludgeon-Man's action. We can recognize that Ephemera are often indicative, but also that we do not have to (and cannot) classify them individually by GNS and counting their little noses to arrive at a conclusion.

Ephemera

Moment-to-moment or sentence-to-sentence actions and statements during play. Combinations of Ephemera often construct Techniques. Changes in Stance represent one example of an Ephemeral aspect of play.

Oi. Ouchie. I must now confess that, after claiming to have read the glossary 3 times, I have somehow manged to miss that definition of Ephemera (even though it's *RIGHT UNDER* the definition of Creative Agenda, which I have copy-pasted something like 5 times in the last 3 days) and was still thinking of it as described in the "Whole Model" thread, which made that much less clear. I feel stoopid. But, this is probably the best and most important part of this thread.

Anyway. I think that "I suggest jettisoning instants as a direct Creative Agenda indicator. Yes, of course instances are composed of instants." looks pretty much the same as "The Sim CA does depend on those causal moments being there (you can't have the Sim CA without a bunch of causal moments), but you can also have a bunch of causal moments without having the Sim CA."

Just drop the bit about old theory and whatever. Sympatico?

Good enough. Although I would like to reinforce the idea that your personal CA is not a "thing" in the same way that the ultimately-produced, "actualized" group CA is. No more than your personal desire to win prior to starting a sports event is anything to get noted in the history book, until after we see how it got "actualized" during the interactions with others on the field.

(I hate that word "actualized." But unfortunately the perfect and classically accurate use of the word "realized" for what I want to say is not commonly employed in English anymore.)

I do, in fact, use the word "realized" in the old sense of "made real" quite often. So I think I know exactly what you're getting at. I am starting a new thread to talk about the "individual CA" here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16180

[Ron Edwards]

Yay! Yes, simpatico. "Teaching Creative Agenda" = now taught.

New topics now, in the context of new understanding.

This one's closed.

Best,
Ron