In Search of an Uncertainty Principle

[Marco]

Ron,

I think it'd be an interesting, probably useful piece of analysis if it was the first decision in a game where everyone just sat down to play and the observer had no other sets of decisions to go on.

And anyway, the terms are still intent based (he kills his mother for the gold pieces as opposed to "he kills his mother and takes her gold pieces. No other appearent motivation is presnet.") Same with the Narrativist--we see the recoil in horror--how do we know it wasn't an issue with matricide?

Sure, because there's more data you get from being there--but eventually you have to get down to "for the gold pieces" and "objects to story-direction te move takes" before it makes any sense--and then, if it is the first decision you've seen, you still have a decent chance of approaching it with the theory (or rather, might have a chance of approaching it with a similar thory).

-Marco

[Mike Holmes]

No, we're still talking about sets of decisions. Mike's example is not about a single decision; it's about how that decision relates to previous standards and enjoyment established earlier in play, by previous decisions which were presumably sequentially-reinforcing.

I see what you're saying. But in the example in question it was in fact that these standards had not been stated before or, in fact, come up before that caused the problem. In this case it happened in the first session of a game, about 1 hour in. Yes, it was because of one player's idealization of the "right" way to play. But there was only one moment that any of this could be, or indeed was, identified. Everything was hunky dorey, one decision was made, there was a fight, and I never played with these three people ever again, despite me trying desperately to fix the problem (the fight was between two players).

There was no Instance observable by anyone. I guess that I could restate it that incoherence can emerge from one decision that is part of an instance of play. But that's because the decision in question had certain properties (the one player saw the other as authoring, and was determinedly Simulationist). In fact, his objection started out simply enough, and just escallated into each of us giving our own idea of the Creative Agenda, essentially, and the original player insisting that his way was the only way to play.

The point is that one can see from that one decision what the individual's Creative Agenda is. When in this case it was impossible to observe it in any other way (basically not enough had happened up until that point that couldn't be explained in terms of multiple modes due to the results displaying congruence).

So, sure, there was an Instance of Play. But it's nature (in this case Sim/Nar incoherence) was in fact determined by the results of the single decision, including player statements made relative to it, not from observation of the play overall.

Mike

[M. J. Young]

On some recent thread I wrote something which was perhaps a revelation to me, and I was surprised no one else picked up the thought; but it's relevant here, so I'll try to restate it.

What matters in GNS analysis is what decisions the player makes when the player believes the decision is important.

For gamists, players will see as important decisions those which enhance his ability to win the game, and will make those in a way that favors winning. What color clothes he wears, what he says to the bartender, where he spends the night or with whom--these are not important decisions to him, and he doesn't care, and will make them without reference to his GNS preference.

For narrativists, players will see as important those decisions which address theme. What weapon or armor the character uses probably is not important to that, and will be made based on other concerns. It is only when he is addressing the theme that the player thinks the decisions important, and thus those are the decisions which reflect his GNS preference.

Simulationists see as important decisions which might upset the core consistency of the simulation. Narrativist and gamist decisions might be made when they don't matter to this, but not when they conflict.

That's why it's so difficult to test someone for GNS preference. The question isn't what would you do in some hypothetical situations I devise; the question is which hypothetical situations do you think are important to your enjoyment of the game. If I ask you want sword you would want your character to use in combat, all other things being equal, you would almost always pick the one that has the best in-game stats. If you're gamist, you do that because it enhances your ability to reach your goals. If you're a narrativist or simulationist you do so because without any additional context the answer doesn't matter, so you "might as well" take the good one by default.

--M. J. Young

[Marco]

On some recent thread I wrote something which was perhaps a revelation to me, and I was surprised no one else picked up the thought; but it's relevant here, so I'll try to restate it.

What matters in GNS analysis is what decisions the player makes when the player believes the decision is important.

--M. J. Young

I think this is a very important realization--and your conclusion is dead on. And I think it raises some very interesting questions about analysis of other people during play.

-Marco

[Wormwood]

Ron,

I agree this isn't a new discovery, but the purpose for the uncertainty principle is to characterize the break down that we observe in the theory. While we know that it fails if we ask too much accuracy from it, this does allow us to account and plan for this failure, as well as adjust observations to gain the desired level of accuracy. As far as social reinforcement, this is part of the reasons why consequences cannot be fully distinguished in terms of decisions.


Marco,

Indeed, I do think that the uncertainty issue is part of the problem with applications of GNS, it's also I suspect at the root of several misunderstandings of the theory. However, it's my hope that with a clearer description of this uncertainty, these problems may be easier to approach.


Mike,

It seems there are a few key points which I need to clarify as it pertains to your example. First, it is possible to arrive at a short hand and delcare a specific decision to be the "primary" cause. This isn't necessarilly accurate, unless that decision is uniquely associated with the agenda. Otherwise this is shorthand for, in this context this event primarilly contributes to this agenda. But we still need that context, and that means we need other decisions to frame the one we have selected. As consequences cease being determinable, this causes the uncertainty in actual cause (rather than apparent ones).  Second, there were clearly numerous instances when the two players made decisions in the context of the game which served to distinguish their agendas, after all you refer to a fight. Such a conflict is necessarilly part of the meta-game, and serves to affix both players into a stronger sense of their agendas. After all, they didn't entirely realize the incoherence until the conflict has already erupted. Third, this incoherence has at least two decisions, first the matricide, and second the decision of the other player to object. These are both relevant to the discussion, and one cannot be considered less incoherent than the other, since incoherence is a gestault phenomena.


M.J.,

What you bring up is quite interesting, and I think it has merit, although, I am somewhat wary about the internalized elements of the idea of importance. Perhaps a more observable version could be formulated. Attention seems useful for this purpose.

In addition I think that the idea you present isn't too far from the techinal play hypothesis I presented a few months ago, namely considering mode to be the material being learned in the midst of play, and distinguishing classes of modes via the type of material. In this respect, what matters is the decisions which affect what the character is learning (rather than the unretained elements of the game). I think it's at least an interesting perspective to consider your idea from.

  -Mendel S.

[Mike Holmes]

Mendel, when we refer to decisions, I've always been under the impression that the term refers to decisions made regarding what happens to in-game elements. That is, if I'm a player, and I say that my character crosses the street, I've made a decision regarding some element in-game. Yes it has an external impact, but I don't think that decisions that are completely external are what GNS is about. That is, I can talk all day about a player's right to play Narrativist, but until I grab Narrativist power in-game, incoherence does not occur. It wasn't the discussion that caused the problem, but the problem that caused the discussion to determine what the problem was.

If all you mean to say is that single decisions are difficult to determine by just looking at them, that's always been agreed to by everyone. But this is a far cry from the claim that I think that Ron is making which I thought said that it takes multiple in-game decisions to discover the creative agenda.

Ron?

Mike

[Wormwood]

Mike,

A fight about whether an in-game event should occur does qualify as a collection of decisions which affect the game. The fact that the fight eventually became something external is largely irrelevant. As you pointed out, it wasn't till during the fight that the actual creative agendas became apparent. And even then there was the preceding decisions to provide context. These allowed you to make the judgements you did. The simple decision to matricide simply does not contain the import you attribute it, unless you allow it's context to be considered. Remember this is a question of observables.

Also, and uncertainty principle is not the same as saying that a particular arena is uncertain, it provides a mechanism for uncertainty, and a gauge to determine it's variance as the system changes. One of the conclusions is that singular decisions are unclassifiable (in terms of creative agenda). On the other hand, it has far more utility than that fact.

I hope that helps,

  -Mendel S.

[Ron Edwards]

I'm with Mendel.

Best,
Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Mike, it seems to me that the breakdown of play following the announcement in question is part of the picture. We're looking at an hour-plus "instance," characterized in full by "incoherent" and further (at the higher level of analysis) as "unsuccessful." I'm willing to let this discussion end on our disagreement about that.

Marco, I can't make head or tails of your points, so I guess I'm done with that.

M.J., I'm having a hard time seeing how your insight is a new thing. I mean, I'm glad you wrote it, and it makes perfect sense, and it's all good, but it also sorta seems obvious. The essence of "social interaction" is emotional commitment of some kind. The best way for me to respond is, "I agree!"

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

Hi there,

Mike, it seems to me that the breakdown of play following the announcement in question is part of the picture. We're looking at an hour-plus "instance," characterized in full by "incoherent" and further (at the higher level of analysis) as "unsuccessful." I'm willing to let this discussion end on our disagreement about that.

Marco, I can't make head or tails of your points, so I guess I'm done with that.

M.J., I'm having a hard time seeing how your insight is a new thing. I mean, I'm glad you wrote it, and it makes perfect sense, and it's all good, but it also sorta seems obvious. The essence of "social interaction" is emotional commitment of some kind. The best way for me to respond is, "I agree!"

Best,
Ron

Well, one thing that MJ's question brings up is "how do I know what the 'important' decisions the guy in question made were?" I think this is getting close to the zone of uncertainity that looks to me like a weak-spot in the theory. What you precieve to be important-decisions may not be what the player does.

Thatss one of the things that I come up with when I look at the general application of GNS.

My point, I guess, is that there's two articles (Gamism and Sim) and neither of them really discuss what behaviors to look for. There's no field guide to a given GNS mode. When there's discussion of the theorie's application it always begins with a known assumed mode--or if there's a question of mode then the answer is usually 'We can't say for sure--we'd have to be there.'

I'm not sure what's so unclear about that--maybe someone can help. Maybe one of the pro's pointers for distinguishing behaviors would be useful in addressing the uncertainty principle.

-Marco

[M. J. Young]

I started to write a response, mostly to Ron, but realized that I'm far enough from the original topic to start a new thread, so it's under http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=81136">GNS Analysis--Post Play.

--M. J. Young

[Mike Holmes]

Mike, it seems to me that the breakdown of play following the announcement in question is part of the picture. We're looking at an hour-plus "instance," characterized in full by "incoherent" and further (at the higher level of analysis) as "unsuccessful."

First, I want to make clear that the example of killing mom for gold was not linked to the real-life example. The RL example involved a player making a decision that seemed to Player A to favor Player B over him, Player C, in a metagame fashion. To Player C, Player A's character wouldn't have done what he did, and Player A was playing "wrong" because he wasn't only doing what "the character would do".

There was no context to note. That is, yes, there was play previous to this, but it was all hunkey-dorey, with little actually going on. Nothing identifiable happened until that one point, and then Bang, it was an accusation of improper play, and the discussion began. IIRC, basically all we had done was an introductory scene with the characters to get them together, then a bit of force on my part to get the characters to a fight (system was Fantasy Hero, BTW), and then it was a decision in the fight about who to help that caused the problem. If that decision had not happened, I'm sure that it would have taken another such decision later in play to discover that there was a problem.

It was almost as if Player C was waiting for one of the other players to do something with a metagame agenda (though I don't actually think that was the case, I think he trusted us all until that point). I would have agreed with the player that it was metagame, but it was also Author stance, not Pawn stance. That is, I think it was a Narrativist attempt to create meaning between the two characters, and it was comletely plausible. But there were cues between the Player A and Player B that made it obvious that the metagame was occuring (I'm sure this will now be cited as more decisions). Having done this sort of play before, it meant nothing to me. I think player C was either a frustrated Gamist, or a hard core Simulationist either way he was staunchly against this.

Now, yes, it was the discussion that showed that the play was incoherent. But I think that's always the case. That is, until somebody gripes, even subtly, I agree that you're unliklely to know that there's a problem.

But the point of the thread was to say that you have to have multiple decisions to get at the nature of play. Well, if all that means is that all decisions can be seen as a group of smaller decisions, or that talk after a problem has occured, or after play about what the play was about, I guess I'll agree. But I thought that an Instance of Play was understandable precisely because there were enough datapoints about decision made over time (the suggested Session, or more).

The example still only incorporates one decision about events in play, and that's the only sort of decision that I think you can affect as GM or as another player, or as designer. I mean, I could possibly have prevented the problem if I had been able to either prevent that sort of decision from being made, or made it clear to Player C that this was part of what was expected from play. The decisions to argue were beyond my control. They were forgone by the time the incoherrence was revealed by the single decision. You prevent the arguing by preventing incoherent decisions from occuring.

That's always been my understanding. If I was mistaken, and Instances are that nebulous such that they can involve only one observable in-game decision, then I stand corrected. But that's exactly what I think everyone means when they talk about "atomic". So I guess we've been talking about the same thing all along?

Or, rather it's a matter of perspective, no? That I see it as the identifiable decision that denotes the nature of the instance, and other's are thinking of the instance as whole identifiable or not? Hrm.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mike,

It's a good question, and I stand with you in musing over it, rather than being all sure.

At this point, and possibly as a source of frustration to you (although I hope not), it seems to me as if previous play on everyone's part, even if it wasn't with one another, is also relevant to the Instance in question, and might possibly be included within it.

Marco, what you're seeing isn't a "weak point" unless you're ascribing purposes to the theory that it doesn't have.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

Hi Mike,

It's a good question, and I stand with you in musing over it, rather than being all sure.

At this point, and possibly as a source of frustration to you (although I hope not), it seems to me as if previous play on everyone's part, even if it wasn't with one another, is also relevant to the Instance in question, and might possibly be included within it.

Marco, what you're seeing isn't a "weak point" unless you're ascribing purposes to the theory that it doesn't have.

Best,
Ron

That may be. I guess I'm unclear what, if any, value the analysis of play is intended to have.

-Marco

[Mike Holmes]

At this point, and possibly as a source of frustration to you (although I hope not), it seems to me as if previous play on everyone's part, even if it wasn't with one another, is also relevant to the Instance in question, and might possibly be included within it.

That must be true. The player with the problem was an "experienced" gamer, and obviously had been informed by previous play. In fact, given his determination to persist in front of logic, I guessed at the time that he'd been in dysfunctional games before (didn't have these terms at the time, but that much seemed obvious: he'd been burned).

If it had been his first game, I'm sure it would have informed his play style instead. Again, I'm not talking about decisions made in a vaccuum, but I am talking about the ability to observe and correct behavior. Without discussing it with him (which I shoulda done, but again, pre-GNS) there's no way I could have seen it coming. He was very reasonable otherwise, and we all remained friends. We just couldn't play. In fact, the two other players who were newbies vowed never to try RPGs again. Yeesh.

Mike