The Lumpley Principle Goes Wading

[ejh]

Blogged a little summary of where I'm at right here.

http://www.puddingbowl.org/ed/archives/001095.html

[John Kim]

Think of it this way; Any world-information you care to name is nothing more and nothing less than a collection of Universalis Facts. (Facts that are pre-Proposed by the designer, yes, but that makes no difference.) Their function is not to provide hard-and-fast information, but to send our imaginations in a particular direction.  

Well, as Ed points out, this is based on the assumption that the only element is narration and dialogue during the session.  i.e. You have decided on what the real "function" is of the rules by rejecting all other  experience.  My impression is that you are saying: the purpose of a role-playing game is only to narrate a story during the session, therefore the function of the rules is nothing more and nothing less than sending imagination in a direction -- they do not convey information.  

But there are other purposes.  For example, in the case of the Traveller world generation rules, in retrospect I value them far more for the information they provided -- not for the stories they generated.  Of course, this is rather personal, and another person might value them only as aids for imagination.  As I discuss in an http://www.darkshire.org/~jhkim/rpg/whatis/education.html">essay on RPGs and education, Traveller was my introduction to astrophysics in grade school and was an early step for me going on to get my Physics PhD.  

To me, great RPGs are about something, not simply diverting bits of verbiage.  They can and in many cases should make it their purpose, their function, to convey information.  This need not be scientific fact.  It could be philosophy or politics or reflections on the human condition.  But it is still information.

[Paganini]

John, Ed,

I feel like we're talking past each other, or maybe arguing on different levels. Lemme see if I can present things from another angle.

Role-playing is a communal group act of imagination, right? It's when we all sit around and imagine something as a group. In order for this to work, there has to be some way for the many imaginings of the individual group members to be synthesized into that single group imagining. There must be some method by which the imaginings of a particular player are given weight over the imaginings of the other players - so that his imaginings are realized into the imagination space over theirs. According to the Lumpley Principle, that weight is Credibility, and that method is System.

It doesn't matter if you're playing completely freeform or using Champions; it doesn't matter if you're trying to tell a story or win a game; in fact, it doesn't matter what your motives are at all. The Lumpley Principle isn't about motives - it's about the way that individual imaginings are "officialized" into the group imagning.

That's all. The Lumpley Principle says nothing about what form credibility takes, or how it should be distributed. All it says is that when you're playing an RPG, the rules are distributing credibility.

The Lumpley Principle is at the level of action: What mechanics do when we use them.

Modeling a particular world is another level higher: Why a particular set of mechanics distributes Credibility in a particular way.

Think of it this way:

A game designer imagines a particular setting that he wants to share with gamers by having them imagine it too. So he writes a game that will (if he's a good designer) encourage players to imagine his setting the way he intends it to be imagined. How does he do that? Well, he creates rules that give credibility to statements that match his view of his setting, and witholds credibility from statements that contradict his view of his setting.

So, the mechanics only model the world to the extent that they encourage the players to imagine the world the way the designer intended the world to be imagined. If the players stick close to the rules, and if the designer did a good job, then what they imagine should be pretty close.  If the players aren't completely hip with what the designer intends, they're free to chuck out the parts they don't like.

Now, suppose that the designer has some other goal in mind, a goal that doesn't involve the characters imagining a particular setting at all. The system is still distributing Credibility. Only now it's distributing it in a way that encourages some other design goal - a goal not related to setting.

Does this presentation make more sense?

[C. Edwards]

Hey Ed,

Well, read the blog. What I don't understand is why sitting alone reading an rpg book has any relevance to "The Lumpley Principle". The game world can be depicted in stories, pictures, cave drawings, whatever, but until you attempt to reconcile that information with another person's interpretation of those things there is no need to worry about "The Lumpley Principle" at all.

The rules of an rpg exist for when you do get together with other people to lump all your separate imaginings together. Not everybody is going to see things exactly the same. Lumpley comes in to say that those rules are apportioning credibility amongst the imaginers. It matters not if it's called Strength or Mojo Points, if in your imagination you see your character as performing feats of strength then you better well insure that you get a high Strength attribute if you want the other participants to see your character the same way. Or even if you want to continue seeing the character the same way yourself.  It all comes down to whose version of the imagined setting and events becomes canon.

When you go back to imagining the setting by yourself you no longer have need of the rules.

So, I guess I'm a little confused about what exactly we disagree on. Yes, the game-world can be represented by more than in-play events but if you want to share that setting with others and you differ on just what is what then, according to "The Lumpley Principle", credibility is king.

-Chris

[John Kim]

Role-playing is a communal group act of imagination, right? It's when we all sit around and imagine something as a group. In order for this to work, there has to be some way for the many imaginings of the individual group members to be synthesized into that single group imagining. There must be some method by which the imaginings of a particular player are given weight over the imaginings of the other players - so that his imaginings are realized into the imagination space over theirs. According to the Lumpley Principle, that weight is Credibility, and that method is System.

Well, here is a simple breakage case.  Suppose that one player thinks X should happen, while another player thinks Y.  They decide to resolve this by opening the rulebook.  They look, and they find that both X and Y are wrong -- the rulebook says that Z should happen.  Both players agree to go with Z.  

Now, I suppose you can say that in this case, what is "really" happening is still that both of the players who agree to use the rules are being given Credibility -- but this ignores the change which occurs when the players look in the rules (X->Z and Y->Z).  At the very least, I would say that it is highly deceptive to describe the rules this way.  i.e. A reasonable person who doesn't know RPGs but reads your description would not think that the case I describe is possible.

[Paganini]

John,

You seem to be nitpicking. I mean, it's true that I didn't specifically cover the case you describe, but it doesn't contradict anything in my post.

If it makes you happy, consider your case covered by "sticking close to the rules" in this paragraph:

So, the mechanics only model the world to the extent that they encourage the players to imagine the world the way the designer intended the world to be imagined. If the players stick close to the rules, and if the designer did a good job, then what they imagine should be pretty close. If the players aren't completely hip with what the designer intends, they're free to chuck out the parts they don't like.

[lumpley]

Ed: your main dilemma is easily solved.  The Lumpley Principle is only about actual play, and I never intended otherwise.  It doesn't say a thing about "the game world," whatever that is, whether it even exists.  (I leave discussion of whether the game world exists in some sense outside of actual play to people who get excited by that kind of thing.  Don't bring my principle into it, as it has a small brain and is easily overwhelmed.)

The thing about "representing" is pretty easy too.  I don't know of any rpg where none of the mechanics refer to the stuff of the (in-play) game world.  My nighttime animals game, otherwise abstract, cares what the danger is; Universalis, otherwise abstract, cares about Traits; even John Wick's I-give-you-coins-if-you-make-me-laugh game made it cheaper to do things our characters were "good at".

That's fine, and no contridiction to the principle.  Any given mechanic or piece of a mechanic might represent in-game events somehow, or it might not; it must and always will distribute credibility.

An imaginary game where it's all abstract, where no mechanic represents any in-game stuff, might seem odd, distanced, and pointless, but if it were well designed, I posit, it would be playable, and that's what counts.

(Reread that thing I wrote to Fang, putting emphasis on the word "exist."  Mechanics don't exist to represent the game world, they exist to facilitate negotiation.  Representing the game world may be the means, often, but the end is inter-participant consensus.)

Mark: "credibility" just means who gets to say what about what.  It's super-common, as you point out, for credibility to get distributed thusly: The GM gets to say anything about anything, provided he stays mostly within the bounds of the written info and consults the mechanics as the game text recommends.  If he goes beyond those bounds, the players can credibly "correct" the GM or "remind" him to consult the mechanics.  Marginal cases are to be decided covertly by strength of personality.

That describes like 75% of my lifetime gaming, it describes the gaming you're talking about, and it's absolutely entirely according to the Lumpley Principle.

Aside, the hard line:  One can play and GM roleplaying games happily forever without knowing the Lumpley Principle.  It's one of the red pills of being a game designer.  Don't wanna take it?  I don't know what to tell you.

John:  Learning astrophysics is beyond actual play, thus beyond the Lumpley Principle.  As to X-Y-Z:

Both players agree to go with Z.

They agree?  Bang, it's the Lumpley Principle in action.

Here's that concise statement you all keep asking for.

The Lumpley Principle:
When one participant says that something happens in the game, what has to happen in the real world before, indeed, it happens?  Bottom line: all the participants have to assent to it.  Mechanics can help create and shape this consensus, as part of negotiations, but they cannot make things happen in the game without it.  This process -- statement -> negotiation -> consensus -- is the game's System in play.

See my orc-in-the-underbrush post on the third page of Exploration of System (split).

There's some wiggliness about whether mechanics get to put statements up for negotiation.  I'm willing to grant that some mechanics sometimes do, but I can't see it being widespread.  If anybody wants to talk about that in particular, let's start another thread.

-Vincent

[kamikaze]

Here's that concise statement you all keep asking for.

The Lumpley Principle:
When one participant says that something happens in the game, what has to happen in the real world before, indeed, it happens?  Bottom line: all the participants have to assent to it.  Mechanics can help create and shape this consensus, as part of negotiations, but they cannot make things happen in the game without it.  This process -- statement -> negotiation -> consensus -- is the game's System in play.

Okay, that's unobjectionable.  Sure, everyone has to agree that we're playing system X, and will use the usual GM/player arbitration on that system, before system X's mechanics can define how things work in the game world.

[John Kim]

Ed: your main dilemma is easily solved.  The Lumpley Principle is only about actual play, and I never intended otherwise.  It doesn't say a thing about "the game world," whatever that is, whether it even exists.

I have some reservations about what you consider to be "actual play" here.  Your definition of "actual play", I think, seems to consider only a certain class of verbal statements made during a group tabletop RPG session.  I'm not sure how well it applies to live-action RP (where the people needed for "consensus" isn't clear), Play-By-Mail (where there isn't necessarily a formation of consensus), and other forms.  It also excludes many of what I consider important parts of role-playing,

The Lumpley Principle:
When one participant says that something happens in the game, what has to happen in the real world before, indeed, it happens?  Bottom line: all the participants have to assent to it.  Mechanics can help create and shape this consensus, as part of negotiations, but they cannot make things happen in the game without it.  This process -- statement -> negotiation -> consensus -- is the game's System in play.

First of all, thanks for the summation.  A few things I would note.  This isn't specific to role-playing.  As I noted in my Carcassonne example, this applies equally well (or poorly) to boardgames, as long as player statements can be non-verbal.  Also, your process always starts with player statement.  

John:  Learning astrophysics is beyond actual play, thus beyond the Lumpley Principle. As to X-Y-Z:

Both players agree to go with Z.

They agree?  Bang, it's the Lumpley Principle in action.  

Er, OK, as long as you cut out the "Statement -->" part at the beginning of your process diagram, then I agree.  Tabletop play is always about forming a consensus.  Negotiation per se isn't always necessarily, but it may be needed at any point -- so I'd agree to it as at least an optional step prior to consensus.  However, in my example, none of the players necessarily made Z as a statement.  That was something they found when they looked in the rulebook.  It's possible that someone might say aloud what is in the rulebook, but it's also possible that the players might all just read it for themselves.  

Your principle as stated excludes any reference material (i.e. rulebooks, character sheets, maps, etc.) from play.  i.e. In your view, any input from these isn't a part of play until a player makes a verbal statement about it.  Thus you say that, for example, my learning astrophysics wasn't a part of play even though much of it occurred at the gaming table as part of the characters' action (i.e. the PCs jump into a system, and we process the information about it).  However, since the learning occurred primarily between me and the rulebooks (rather than between me and other players), you say that it isn't "actual play".

[Lxndr]

How does that conflict?  Statements were made (X,Y).  Negotiation occurred (in which statement Z was arrived at, in this case by looking in the game book), and consensus was reached over statement Z.

You don't need to remove the "Statement" part.  Without statements X and Y, they never would have looked for Z.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Er, OK, as long as you cut out the "Statement -->" part at the beginning of your process diagram, then I agree.  Tabletop play is always about forming a consensus.  Negotiation per se isn't always necessarily, but it may be needed at any point -- so I'd agree to it as at least an optional step prior to consensus.  However, in my example, none of the players necessarily made Z as a statement.  That was something they found when they looked in the rulebook.  It's possible that someone might say aloud what is in the rulebook, but it's also possible that the players might all just read it for themselves.  

I'm sorry, John, but this feels a bit nitpicky to me. First of all, in the context of playing an RPG, "negotiate" does not always occur by the strict definition of the word. It may be as simple as the GM saying make a roll and then the result interpreted. Hardly a negotiation in the traditional sense.

As far as arriving at Z, this is the nature of compromise. When buying a house, the seller may be asking for 100,000 and the buyer offers 80,000. After negotiation, they agree on the figure of 85,500. Neither side originally stated this amount. They arrived at it after negotiating.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Your principle as stated excludes any reference material (i.e. rulebooks, character sheets, maps, etc.) from play.  i.e. In your view, any input from these isn't a part of play until a player makes a verbal statement about it.  Thus you say that, for example, my learning astrophysics wasn't a part of play even though much of it occurred at the gaming table as part of the characters' action (i.e. the PCs jump into a system, and we process the information about it).  However, since the learning occurred primarily between me and the rulebooks (rather than between me and other players), you say that it isn't "actual play".

We're probably going to disagree on this pretty hard. I, personally, see RPGs as a social activity. Anything you do that does not involve the other players is a similar, yet different activity. I don't consider solo rpgs to be rpgs. They're solo rpgs, therefore different.

I was going to make the obvious analogy here to sex, but that's a bit vulgar and, besides, would sound like I was putting you down, which I am not.

I would say that the reference materials are only a part of play if they are used in play. I know that most of the time when I played D&D alignments were not a part of play. It was written on my character sheet, but I never had to reference it either for the purpose of a magic spell or item or to guide my interpretation of my character. It was never used and thus not part of play.

Somehow, I am reminded of the scene in the Martix.
"I know kung fu!"
"Show me."
Imagine if Morpheus had said "that's nice" and walked away and Neo had never gotten a chance to use it.

The social aspect is the key IMO. Entering items into that shared imagined space that all of the players have access to. If it doesn't effect the other players in any way, shape, manner, or form then that's nice. You see.

[lumpley]

John?  You're raising a bunch of non-objections.

If we want to continue with X-Y-Z past Alexander's (excellent) answer, I'm going to need a more concrete example.

The only thing I see in your post that I can really answer is your complaint against "verbal."  My answer is: no, of course I don't mean only verbal.  I include whatever forms of nonverbal communication there are in an rpg.  Show somebody something on your character sheet with only a barely-raised eyebrow?  Flip through the book and stop with your finger on a paragraph, where others can see?  Get up and get a drink while someone else is talking?  That's negotiation.

I may be missing your point about the astrophysics, though.  In what ways did your learning astrophysics from Traveller's mechanics contribute to the in-game events of your Traveller game?  (Not challenging, asking.)

-Vincent

[lumpley]

Mark, check this:

At any moment during play any participant can stop using the game mechanics as written.  At that moment, whether the game comes to a (likely screeching) halt or continues, changed, is up to the group to negotiate.

If it's still unobjectionable, we're good.

-Vincent

[ejh]

This is getting a little difficult to follow.

I had understood it all if we bracked it with the assumptions that the Lumpley Principle was only about "actual play" where "actual play" was defined as the ongoing *verbal narrations* of the players.

My scope was broader; I was talking about all the things that depict a game world, both before you start narrating verbally, while you do, and after you did.

"Depict" = "portray in some way" = "describe" ...  This is something that an ongoing game's verbal narration does, but it's also something that other things can do, i.e. reading a rulebook.  A variety of different world-depicting mechanisms have traditionally been associated with RPGs.

Interesting to see the "solos are roleplaying!" "No they're not!" argument come up.  It seems to me to be a matter of definition, but it sure generates some strong opinions for a matter of definition.

I can see that seeing solos as roleplaying or not would depend on whether you accepted the assumption that "actual play" consists of the verbal consensus achieved by a group in a session.

Here's a prediction: anyone who sees the Lumpley Principle as obviously true will also think solos are not really roleplaying games, and the converse is also true.

Except for me, I think both are a matter of definition and can be true or false however you like to define it. :)