Questions about the Fidelity Axis (From Horseshoe 2)

[Piers]

As a follow-up to the Beeg Horseshoe Theory Revisited thread (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6663):

The idea of a separate Fidelity axis is pretty persuasive.  The close parallel between it and Sim, however, gives it something of Sim's fragmentary quality, at least in my mind.  Which makes me ask if there are distinctions to be made:

On the opposite end of the Fidelity spectrum to High Fidelity, betweeen

1.   Incoherence--a simple lack attention to Fidelity.
and
2.   Infidelity--deliberate transgression of Fidelity.  

Or is Infidelity a sort of Fidelity to PoMo, where the deliberate transgression of carefully set Fidelity boundaries becomes a sort of Fidelity in and of itself?

And, similarly, is it useful to distinguish between

1.   Fidelity to Detail--attention to a preset background with a great deal of detail (eg Tekumel, Glorantha, etc).
and
2.   Fidelity to Genre--Story Now/No Myth styles of play, where there is no preset detail, but there is a careful attention to Fidelity.

Is this helpful, or am I simply trying to demolish the theory by stealth?

[Bankuei]

Hi Piers,

On the opposite end of the Fidelity spectrum to High Fidelity, betweeen

1. Incoherence--a simple lack attention to Fidelity.
and
2. Infidelity--deliberate transgression of Fidelity.

I wouldn't say that #1 is Incoherence.  I would simply say that #1 just isn't a priority for some people.  It may not even need a name, simply "Lo-fi" play.  

On note of number 2, realize, that Fidelity is defined by the group.  So if I decide to take a WW game, kick out half of the background and setting, and rewrite it, by the group agreeing to play this fashion, all we have done is change the details of what we're adhereing to as Fidelity, but the Fidelity can be just as high.  A good example is the various folks playing TROS with historical settings instead of the Weyrth.  All they've done is change what they're holding Fidelity to.

The other method #2 comes into play, is dysfunctional play.  Consider the one player who does things that regularly violate what the social contract of the group has established.  This would be a player attempting to do Toon-style action("I paint a hole, then walk through it"), in a very serious game.  It could also work the other way("I break his arm and watch him die of bloodloss" in Toon).  What typically stops this from happening is group consensus.

The major issue of #2 comes in when its the GM suddenly pulling out Lo-fidelity stuff in what is otherwise a high fidelity game, or vice versa.  Usually this is the GM fiat/railroading/power abuse territory, where villains suddenly become "anime-immune" to weapons, or that non-serious threats suddenly have real consequences, that perhaps, under different circumstances(such as following the GM's plot) they wouldn't have otherwise.

So I'd say #1 is just Low Fidelity play, and #2 is Dysfunctional play.  Realize that as a group, the whole group cannot violate the social contract of Fidelity, since whatever they're agreeing it to be(low, medium, high, etc.) as a group makes that.

1. Fidelity to Detail--attention to a preset background with a great deal of detail (eg Tekumel, Glorantha, etc).
and
2. Fidelity to Genre--Story Now/No Myth styles of play, where there is no preset detail, but there is a careful attention to Fidelity.

I don't make a differentiation here.  I consider the genre expectations to be part of the setting(granted, group may change either at will).  

Consider this-

Blade Runner- Cyberpunk with androids, gritty, grim future.  Fairly "realistic" in portrayal of humans.

Bubblegum Crisis- Cyberpunk with androids, gritty, grim future.  Humans can excel to "cinematic" abilities.

Tezuka's Metropolis- Cyberpunk with androids, gritty, grim future.  Humans are normal, just absurdly lucky in avoiding gettting killed from falls and being shot at.

Although various setting details differ, the basic concepts are the same, but the genre expectations of each of these differ significantly.  I'd say that regardless of what requires high fidelity, its more just a shift of focus rather than a fundamental difference between the two.  I'd say its more based on what (Character, Setting, Situation, Color, System) that you're looking at focusing Fidelity on.

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

First, this may be a little premature, as I really want to nail down the overall ideas to see if the theory has validity before branching out. But I'll take this as just another branch of examination of the theory, and answer it thusly.

Chris has some good points. But I'll put in my own here.

The close parallel between it and Sim, however, gives it something of Sim's fragmentary quality, at least in my mind.

Could you explain what you man by "fragmentary quality"?

1.   Incoherence--a simple lack attention to Fidelity.
and
2.   Infidelity--deliberate transgression of Fidelity.  

Incoherence should remain, for purposes of the discussion to mean what it does in GNS theory, essentially play that is problematic because it has conflicting modes operating. If a group decides that it doesn't care much about HiFidelity, then any Fidelity above the minimum requirement can be coherent.

This is an interesting feature of this axis. In general, there is no maximum. Again, I've never heard the complaint, "That was too realistic," or anything similar to it. Instead groups have minimum fidelity requirements. Dipping below which causes incoherency. Or rather, incoherency on this axis is players having differing minimum requirements.

Or is Infidelity a sort of Fidelity to PoMo, where the deliberate transgression of carefully set Fidelity boundaries becomes a sort of Fidelity in and of itself?

Post Modern? Doesn't have to be post modern to have a lowFidelity expectation. That is, a game like Tunnels and Trolls requires a LowFi tolerance given the very metagame nature of much of it's mechanics.

In some ways Fidelity is a bad term (though I'll contnue with it because I don't think anything better is forthcoming). It has a lot of different sides to it, and goals that can cause the minimum requirement to be at different levels.

1.   Fidelity to Detail--attention to a preset background with a great deal of detail (eg Tekumel, Glorantha, etc).
and
2.   Fidelity to Genre--Story Now/No Myth styles of play, where there is no preset detail, but there is a careful attention to Fidelity.

See, here we see that you're missing what I mean by fidelity; it has nothing to do neccessarily with accuracy. No Myth is, in fact, Low Fidelity. That is, it's precisely the lack of "permenance" in feel that denies most of what's delivered by Fidelity. Yes, adhering to setting detail is one way to get the Fidelity feel, but not because of some loyalty to the setting. It's very much not the like of the setting, but trying to get the feel that the setting is "real".

Do you see the distinction? Fidelity is the notion that there is something that actually exists by convention to be explored. That can't be obtained with No Myth play because that style creates everything on the spot. Note that the feeling delivered is completely illusory as the world is invented at some point. But it still makes a difference to those who want HiFidelity.

This also means that "realism", which I've used as an example, doesn't have to be present at all in many cases to have Fidelity. That's just one rout to the Fidelity.

Consider that a minimal level for most groups is that facts that have been extablished have a permenance and logical impact on the world. This is true of even play like No Myth. It's this internal consistency level that Ron says is applicable to all play. What he's saying is that this forms a floor for almost all play below which Fidelity is not allowed to drop. Only in something really post modern would causality be chucked even in part.

The question is to what extent the causes seem to exist a priori. The more this is true, the Higher the fidelity. So to differentiate between play and design, HiFi play involves players making decisions that are consistent with the elements of the world as they are presented, beyond just being internally consistent, but adhering to some externall locatable principle (samurai are honorable in this world, so the character acts honorably). For design it means having these elements from which to make these decisions.

Note that this doens't mean that I ascribe to Ron's idea that Sim characters are "less dynamic". More accurately Ron says that dynamism has to be supported by the game itself. It's a truism that characters tend to be defined in RPGs in human terms. As such, change, and transgression are normal human conditions. As long as there are reasons, this can simply be "realistic" (one can refrain from intending to create theme). That said, he's right in that, despite a player making such a decision based on "realistic" decision making, it will still seem thematic. Once again we see how the new model explains Char Sim and Nar dichotomies, and also improves on the old definition as in this one we see that both styles of play are completely compatible. The Nar player will see the outcome as HiFi/Thematic, and have no problem with the outcome.

Mike

[Jason Lee]

This is an interesting feature of this axis. In general, there is no maximum. Again, I've never heard the complaint, "That was too realistic," or anything similar to it. Instead groups have minimum fidelity requirements. Dipping below which causes incoherency. Or rather, incoherency on this axis is players having differing minimum requirements.

I don't think I agree with this.  "That's too realistic" is just the flip side arguement for the player who's the target of "That's not realistic".  Though, it's normally worded more like "You're being anal.  It's a game.  It isn't real."

Case in point:  A few Earth characters were on an artifical alien world.  I have no idea why, but one of the players wanted to know if his character's cell phone worked.
The GM said "Yeah".
I said "What?!? How?!?  Airtouch service reaches halfway across the galaxy?"
GM: "Because of the stuff in the air."
Me:  "What stuff?!?"
GM: "The stuff that makes cell phones work."
Me:  "Guaaarhhhh!"
GM:  "Who cares? They work.  I don't know how cell phones work."
Me: "Fine, whatever.  After a year off planet your battery is still charged, your service hasn't been disconnected for not paying your bill, and the cell phone gods have blessed this hallowed ground.  Call someone."
GM:  "It isn't magic."
Player: "I call so-and-so-the-other-PC who also has a cell phone."
Me: (Insert screams and angry dance) "I'm gonna go stick my head in the oven and breathe in the stuff in the air that makes ovens work."

Maybe I'm exaggerating about the oven, but you get the point.  I think there can be a maximum as well.  In the example the GM has dipped below my minimum and I've risen over his maximum.

[M. J. Young]

I think there may be a conflict between different meanings of fidelity driving this whole thing.

Again, I've never heard the complaint, "That was too realistic," or anything similar to it.

And, as I said in the parent thread, and as Jason illustrates below, you have heard it, you just didn't recognize it. It's the conflict between what reasonably would have happened in that situation that one player expects and what actually happens because of metagame gamism or narrativism.

Fidelity, in the context of play apart from GNS, means the degree to which the world is true to its own rules, the Baseline/Vision combination Chris Lehrich advocates. Those rules are very different in, say, The Matrix, than in Buffy or D&D or V:tM. I certainly agree that this exists in all forms of play. However, there is a significant difference between adhering to a minimum threshold of fidelity to the setting and demanding that nothing happen within the setting that does not have an in-setting cause.

Jason's story in the other thread (the Genevieve story) includes the moment when all the players came to the room in which the fight was happening. As I observed there, the only reason for that to have happened was that the players wanted it to happen. There is a sense in which it was totally unrealistic for everyone to go there. Yet there is no sense in which it was impossible for any one of them to go there, and thus no sense in which it was impossible for all of them to do so. It was in one sense fidelitous, true to the restrictions of the world. No one had to teleport inexplicably from the other side of the galaxy. No one had to come back to life by his own power. Everyone was in a position where he could go to the room. The unrealistic aspect is merely that everyone did go to the room. From a simulationist perspective, that can't happen. No one can go to that room without a cause, a reason or motivation that is entirely in-game. The pilot of the ship can't suddenly decide to put the ship on autopilot and go down for a cup of coffee in Luccia's room and stumble into the middle of the argument, since probably that character has never done that before and has no reason to do it now. That's a direct conflict with reality, a decision to prioritize narrativist interests over simulationist ones. In a lot of games I've run, I would have forbidden it. Luccia and Luir would have fought it out, alone together, unless one of them took action to alert others to the situation. Players cannot decide that their characters are going to do things totally without reason that either impact the story or involve them in the challenge, because people don't have the ability to do so in reality. That's simulationism. Fidelity is no more a part of it per se than it is part of any other mode. You can have low-fidelity simulationism almost as easily as you can have low-fidelity narrativism or gamism.

Mike, I think your fidelity issue is a good one, but I think you need a three-dimensional array. Gamist, Narrativist, and Simulationist play all occur at different points along the fidelity axis. I've seen them and played them. The level of detail and conformity to reality of The Zygote Experience (mentioned also in the other thread) is entirely within the power of the referee and the player. You can play the pain of every tooth that cuts, every fall on the road to learning to stand, every wipe of the drool from the face until you've got control of your facial muscles. You can rush through it all and ignore as many details as you like. Fidelity is adjustable, even in pure simulationist play.

--M. J. Young

[Jason Lee]

Mike, I think your fidelity issue is a good one, but I think you need a three-dimensional array. Gamist, Narrativist, and Simulationist play all occur at different points along the fidelity axis. I've seen them and played them. The level of detail and conformity to reality of The Zygote Experience (mentioned also in the other thread) is entirely within the power of the referee and the player. You can play the pain of every tooth that cuts, every fall on the road to learning to stand, every wipe of the drool from the face until you've got control of your facial muscles. You can rush through it all and ignore as many details as you like. Fidelity is adjustable, even in pure simulationist play.

I agree with you on Fidelity being adjustable in Sim play.  My original thinking was that the model had to work like this:

F + |C| = 10

C=Position on Conflict Axis, Ranges -10 (Challenge) to +10 (Theme)
F=Position on Fidelity Axis, Ranges 0 to 10

I don't think that's true though.  I think you can simply be playing with less of everything or more of everything.  

I don't think you need another axis for this.  If we say that Sim play is the neutral point on the Conflict axis; unmotivated by either Challenge or Theme; and is therefore purely a function of Fidelity; we can still adjust the value of Fidelity without it making it no longer Sim play.

[John Kim]

1. Fidelity to Detail--attention to a preset background with a great deal of detail (eg Tekumel, Glorantha, etc).
and
2. Fidelity to Genre--Story Now/No Myth styles of play, where there is no preset detail, but there is a careful attention to Fidelity.

I don't make a differentiation here.  I consider the genre expectations to be part of the setting(granted, group may change either at will).  

At least for some people, there is a huge world of difference between genre expectations and setting fidelity.  Personally, I would agree with Mike Holmes that genre expectations are something else entirely -- and that No-Myth play should be considered very low Fidelity.  

A given setting can be used for a huge variety of genres.  Consider the simple case: the realistic modern world.  It can be used for romantic comedies, murder mysteries, war epics, family dramas, and endless other types.  

Now, fantasy settings tend to be only be used for a single genre, but there is no inherent reason for that.  I could easily set a mundane family drama in Tolkien's Middle Earth, say, in the Shire several decades prior to the War of the Ring.  This would be strikingly different in genre from The Lord of the Rings, but completely true to Tolkien's established background.

[Bankuei]

Hi John,

Perhaps setting isn't the word I was looking for there, but "Whatever it is" that people are holding fidelity to.  Consider this, yes, you can play a variety different ways in "fantasy" but you are held to a much higher level of fidelity when you play "Ravenloft".  

Certain Genre Expectations are part of what you are holding to in terms of Fidelity.  Consider the many superhero games or pulp games where there is an explicit rule that villians survive any death where you cannot find a body.  This is "part of" the way the world works, and is definitely something that the group will hold Fidelity to.

Again, I don't see what the difference here is.  If my group demands that I play my Jedi as an enlightened warrior, because its part of the Star Wars setting, it is effectively the same thing as a Genre Expectation, either way, I'm being called to hold Fidelity to the idea.  I don't see the value in seperating the difference.  I would be interested in hearing some examples of what the difference is, and if it plays out any differently in actual play for the purposes of Fidelity.

Chris

[Alan]

I just had an idea for a new wording for explaination of Simulationist preferences.  As I understand them, they put consistency of background, setup, and genre expectations above the power of the players.  The players play to explore that consistency.  

Gamist and Narrativist preferences focus on consistency in player effectiveness: either in competitive capability or thematic projection.

Is "fidelity" the priority placed on consistency of background, setup, and genre expectations?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Alan,

just had an idea for a new wording for explaination of Simulationist preferences. As I understand them, they put consistency of background, setup, and genre expectations above the power of the players. The players play to explore that consistency.

I was sort of under the impression that I said exactly this in my Simulationist essay.

One part of this dialogue is a lot like the above - I'm seeing a lot of people going "boink!" because the word Fidelity works well for them. That's great, but there's no conceptual changes going on with the theory at all; it's just access to the theory.

The other part is the one that M.J. is rightly focusing on - whether we're talking about Sim play as a real-person priority or not, or whether it's only an absence of one sort or another (of G or N, in fact).

What's funny about all this is that I was the first person to propose that Sim play was an absence, as well as the notion that embracing the absence was the product of a certain sort of fear (exactly as being currently discussed as Abused Player Syndrome(, and was shouted down in the first flame war ever at the Forge.

So I'll tell ya - I'm just watching this discussion to learn. I absolutely refuse to weigh in as a fellow, equal participant, only to see my words taken as some kind of heavyweight "this is it" deal.

Best,
Ron

[John Kim]

Certain Genre Expectations are part of what you are holding to in terms of Fidelity.  Consider the many superhero games or pulp games where there is an explicit rule that villians survive any death where you cannot find a body.  This is "part of" the way the world works, and is definitely something that the group will hold Fidelity to.

Again, I don't see what the difference here is.  If my group demands that I play my Jedi as an enlightened warrior, because its part of the Star Wars setting, it is effectively the same thing as a Genre Expectation, either way, I'm being called to hold Fidelity to the idea.  I don't see the value in seperating the difference.  I would be interested in hearing some examples of what the difference is, and if it plays out any differently in actual play for the purposes of Fidelity.  

Sure.  To take the superhero example: there is a fairly common superhero theme of "what would *really* happen with superpowers".  GURPS Supers takes this approach, for example.  i.e. Rather than trying to imitate all aspects of superhero comics, it instead takes the approach of "What would be the result if we followed all the comic-book assumptions?"  A parallel to this would be what Alan Moore's Miracleman series did to the previous Miracleman comics.  As I understand it, he technically explained all of the previously shown details (mostly using the device that they were induced hallucinations).  However, he horrendously deconstructed them to make something that was totally untrue in spirit to the original, but instead was a dark commentary on superheroics.  

I did a related approach with my Star Trek campaigns.  They were set in the time period of the original series, and I tried to match up as much as possible with the background as shown there.  However, I also did a number of reversals on the series.  

For example, I started from the assumption that the Federation was a democracy as shown in "Journey to Babel".  However, this meant that there was dissension over correct course of actions, politics, and so forth.  In particular, the Prime Directive was a political expedient.  Some people also believed in it as a moral goal, but others saw it as the lesser of evils.  Since each planet is represented as votes in the Federation, allowing intervention would mean that more technologically/culturally advanced members would have undue influence in the assembly.  Many felt that it would actually be good to intervene in many cases, but they can see that there is no way to agree upon how to intervene in a neutral manner.  

Thus, I kept as a fact of the background that the Prime Directive is a principle of the Federation, and also that Captain Kirk genuinely believes in it as a moral imperative.  However, I did not abide by the story convention that the principles of the Federation are held up as morals of the story.  Rather, the Federation was showed to often be a flawed, fractious, and hypocritical lot -- but still a good system, and likely the least among evils.

[Mike Holmes]

Ron, what was being reacted to in that flamewar was not the idea that fear could be a cause of Sim play. The idea that seemed to be promoted was that fear was the cause of all sim play. That there was no Sim play outside of those players who did so because they were fearful of being slapped down. Which I'd still object to personally.

Please do weigh in with criticisms, Ron. We'll try not to privilege your input in any way (right, people?).


I have to make a revision. No Myth, is neither LoFi,nor HiFi. No Myth is a technique. One can make just as HiFi decisions using it. When I said it was LoFi, I should have said, that as a design technique that it was less supportive in general, than other sorts of play methodologies. Though even that's not true if you have as much in the way of genre expectations as you have in say setting, or some other method for delivering opportunities to make HiFi decisions. Some settings are more "genre expectation" for example, than they are hard setting facts as the superhero and Trek examples show.

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

To follow my reply to Ron, John and Chris,

Jason, I've already considered your idea. That is, onbe could see all three GNS priorities as their own axes. This would satisfy MJ better I think. The problem is that I'm not sure it helps with understanding. Yes, there are Decisions that are Nar/Gam congruent (the oft cited Superhero battle, for example). But if we were to concentrate on the fact that all modes could be congruent, we'd miss the point of the theory as a whole, which is to avoid the problems. I've separated Fidelity very much because it happens to have a different relationship with the other two, IMO, perceptually.


But let's look at the outcome of the three-axis model. First, it makes sense, because it seems to me that all priorities have that minimum bar over which decisions are acceptable. That is, there's never a time that if a decision is allowed to be Gamist, that it can be said to be "too" Gamist. It'll only be problematic if it violates one of the other priorities (see what I mean, MJ?).

The one thing that intrigues me about it is the idea of the corner of the cube that's created where all three priorities are high. The theoretical problem with this corner is that it's been theorized that it's a harder place to stand in even than the Sim/Nar or Sim/Gamist corners of the two axis plot. That said, it's certainly an idea I like, from a purely theoretical POV. I'd like a game that supported all three modes simultaneously.

But, again, doing this to the model means that you lose what I see as easy access to the definitions of the modes. That is, by making Fidelity perpendicular to the other axis, it seems to me that suddenly Narrativism is more easy to understand. But that might be my own bias. I'm not sure the 3d model does this, however more pure it might be. The original model is pure, but less understandable (IMO).

Mike