Looking at the idea called 'system' again

[Caldis]

The people were able to play and decide what happened that's the physically measurable quality.  System is a component of role playing it's how it was done.  For there to be no system requires no successful play.  Here's an example of play without system.

Kids playing cops and robbers.

"Bang I shot you, you're dead." 

"No you missed."

Arguement ensues, the game ends they all go home.

They couldnt agree on what was happening in the game.

This group did have system.

"Bang I shot you, you're dead."

"No you missed."

Negotiation ensues, result shot player falls down counts to ten and is back in the game.

They had system and it included negotiation.  They agreed to what happened.

[Callan S.]

The people were able to play and decide what happened that's the physically measurable quality.

How do you physically measure that? And I mean in a way anyone could physically measure, rather than it being that certain individuals are declared as the ones to say whether it's the case or not?

System is a component of role playing it's how it was done.  For there to be no system requires no successful play.

I'm looking at the defintion right now and it doesn't require 'system' to exist at all for play to be considered successful at any given moment. It doesn't say that has to be there or otherwise play is not successful.

Either A: It meant to convey what you say, but doesn't do so (well, I atleast think it doesn't convey it at all) or B: you've invented some quality that isn't part of the currently used defintion. Ie, your wrong on the matter.

I'm thinking B of course, but I will say that if you play simulationism, as I understand it, that does require system to be there or it's not successful play. And this hobbies has a history of simulationists conflating their agenda with how all roleplaying is done and what simply must be there for successful play to happen, all the way back to Gygax arguing with Dave Arneson.

[Callan S.]

Indeed, take your first cops and robbers example and say there was a rule "If two people can't agree on the fiction of who shot whom, flip a coin and whoever loses lies on the ground and counts to ten"

Let's say they play, argue, realise they can't agree, flip a coin and the one who loses the coin toss does lie on the ground and counts to ten. That's successful play.

"But they agreed on who was shot!"

No, read the rules - they agreed on who would lie down for a count of ten. That's all - if your pasting an imaginative level onto that, that's just you doing so, all by yourself. No one asked you to add an imaginative level to that nor is anyone agreeing with the imagination you weren't asked to add.

There's the rule, they can be physically observed as following it, that's successful play. Except for a simulationist bent on the continued integrity of the imaginative space.

[Ron Edwards]

Five pages is about as far as any Forge thread I've ever seen manages to get without looping back on itself or turning into repeated claims and counter-claims. This one has reached a point at which each addition becomes less constructive.

I'm going to call for daughter threads if anyone wants to continue the discussion. Each daughter thread, should there be any, must be founded on discussions of actual role-playing experiences.

This thread is now closed to further posting. No one's done anything terribly wrong in it, but its time has come. "To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn," and all that.

Best, Ron