Defining Roleplaying (According to GNS)

[Jonathan Walton]

With Ron's recent statements in the Clarifying Simulationism thread, I actually think we're damn close to defining roleplaying, at least according to GNS and the general theory precepts that most of us share.

Roleplaying = Social Contract + Shared Imaginative Space + Exploration + Creative Agenda ("Step on Up," "Story Now," and/or "the Dream")

The only really controversial part, I think, is whether at least one Creative Agenda is required for it to really be roleplaying.  Ralph, I think, is trying to argue that Exploration without a Creative Agenda (passive, like an audience) is still roleplaying.  Honestly, I would tend to agree with him.

Imagine there's a game going on where some people are not players, btu are still in the room listening.  They're taking part in the Shared Imagined Space & Exploration just like everyone else.  Or say there's that point in the game (as in all games), where not all the players are actively engaged.  Maybe several characters are asleep or dead or off in a distant land.  They may not have any Creative Agenda in the current scene, but they're still engaged and participating in Shared Space & Exploration.

However, what may be important is that SOMEONE has to be exerting a Creative Agenda in order for roleplaying to happen.  If everyone were to be passive Explorers, there would be nothing new to explore.  So having one or more Creative Agenda's is still critical to roleplaying, but everyone involved in roleplaying doesn't necessarily need their own Creative Agenda.  It can be enough that someone else has one and you're watching the results of that.

Furthermore, I think it can be said that Shared Imagined Space and Exploration are basically the same concept.  The important part is "Exploration of Shared Imagined Space" and both existing terms are really just shortened ways of saying that.  Imagining the shared space is Exploration, according to the definition of that term.  Likewise, Exploration doesn't exist without the Shared Space within which to work (though I suppose you could explore your own personal imagined space, if you wanted).

So perhaps a modified way of saying this would be:

Roleplaying = Social Contract + Exploration of Shared Imagined Space + 1 or more people with 1 or more Creative Agendas

How's that sound?

[Valamir]

I'd add + Techniques.

IMO its the Techniques that transform collaborative story writing into role playing.  I think a bunch of folks sitting around attempting to write a novel collectively can exhibit GNS.  There's certainly Step on Up present in the shear social dynamic of whose ideas stick.  Clearly since Narrativist ideas of Premise stem from Egri who was using the term relative to writing theater scripts there is the possibility of "Story Now" in the writing exercise.

What distinguishes this activity from something we'd label "role playing" then seems to be the techniques.  The various processes and system and such that provide structure to the activity.

[Jonathan Walton]

Ralph,

How are your "Techniques" different from the Social Contract?  In my mind, the Social Contract IS "the various processes and system and such that provide structure to the activity."  Are you talking about something different?

[Valamir]

Hmmm, well I don't know maybe Techniques isn't the right term (I was trying to stick to what was on the Venn diagram).  Where does System come in in your definition?  System is not entirely contained within Social Contract.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

No, it's "Techniques" all right. These are, simply, the procedures of conducting play at all, in action.

Stuff like "GM narrates outcomes" is a Technique. Stuff like, well, all of IIEE, is a Technique.

Stances, for instance, are sub-sets of Technique.

One might say, "Ron, isn't that System?" and I'd say, "System is higher-level in the Venn diagram, so you can think of Techniques as specific applications of System, in much smaller time-units and interaction-units."

So I agree with Ralph, add Techniques.

Otherwise, it reads to me (sorry, again) like someone working out what I'm saying, and have been saying, in words of their own. Which is a grand thing.

Best,
Ron

[AnyaTheBlue]

Ralph, I think, is trying to argue that Exploration without a Creative Agenda (passive, like an audience) is still roleplaying. Honestly, I would tend to agree with him.

I agree that it's roleplaying, too, except I don't see it as 'passive, like an audience' so much as I see it as 'passive, in terms of Agenda'.

They are still doing things, interacting with people, and having "their guy do stuff".  But they aren't trying to impose any particular GNS Agenda to their or anybody else's play.

It's Active in Ron's sense that they are interacting with the other people and the social contract.

It's Passive in the sense that they are not pushing or prioritizing an Agenda.

Does that make sense?  I think I see this a lot in Illusionist play where the players are aware of and complicit with the existence of the Illusion.  Although maybe that makes the Agenda be Sim.  Which is probably Ron's point.  Hm.

[Jonathan Walton]

Okay, for my purposes, I don't find it very helpful to seperate Social Contract into parts like System and Techniques, but I see how one might do that.  It just seems to make the Contract a bunch of rules when it's really just an arbitrary, changable collection of norms.  It looks harder to change when you have all the component parts out in front of you and get to pick which ones to keep or ditch.  Or maybe I just like things simpler.  I seem to recall Ron's model of:

[Social Contract [System [Techniques] ] ]

Which, to me, just seems easier to think of as Social Contract, since I've been stuck in the ghetto of thinking about System for FAR too long.  But if you want to substitute that for the "Social Contract" part of the equation, by all means go for it.

But Ron, you don't have issues with the "only one player needs to have a Creative Agenda for all the players to be roleplaying" statement?  I thought that would be a bit controversial, considering what you were saying in the other thread.

[Valamir]

That's a good point Jonathan.  But the only purpose in trying to define what role playing is, is to distringuish it as something different from something else.  I am aware that your purpose is to define it in a way that is maximally inclusive to demonstrate that various non traditional things are still within the scope of roleplaying.  But still the border is somewhere.

Collective story telling has a Social Contract (all social interaction does).
What makes roleplaying different from Collective story telling is that our Social Contract includes an agreement (implied or explicit) to abide by the system and techniques we use to play.  This is different from whatever pure social dynamic is at work in collective story telling efforts.

So I would continue to think that difference needs to be explicit in any definition.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jonathan,

Your presentation of my Venn diagram:

[Social Contract [System [Techniques] ] ]

... is accurate, but it doesn't contradict what's been presented. Remember that each "box" is an expression of the boxes which contain it, so that Techniques just as you're pictured them, are, when all is said and done, still pieces/aspects of Social Contract.

Best,
Ron

[Gordon C. Landis]

Ralph (and all),

But - what is the distinction between "Social Contract" and "System"?  What kinds of things would live in the Social Contract part of the Venn diagram ONLY?  As far as I can tell, Lumpley implies that anything we do together socially can be considered as System.

The best I can come up with is that Social Contract contains implied system while System refers to explicit system (and their seperation line in the Venn diagram is "thick" so as to allow some things to be kinda-sorta both implied and explicit).  But that seems pretty weak . . .

Gordon

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Gordon,

I've talked about this before. Social Contract contains everything, including the [Exploration [[[]]]], but also stuff like who's sleeping with whom, and what happens because of that, and who's allowed to laugh when someone blows a roll and who isn't, and who rides home together with whom and therefore gets to deconstruct the session afterward, and so on.

All that stuff. The [Exploration [[[]]]] is in there too, among all that stuff. Together, it's all Social Contract.

Best,
Ron

[AnyaTheBlue]

But - what is the distinction between "Social Contract" and "System"?

To clarify Ron's point, I think that System is in fact a part of the Social Contract.

You all sit down and talk at the table.  There is a social contract in operation.

You decide to game, and pull out a set of games, negotiating which game to play.  More pre-game social contract, part of which includes a (stated or unstated) willingness to accept the social contract that the Actual Game Text encompasses, as modified by house rules and other social-contract-mediated changes to the foundational framework that the Actual Game Text provides.

The 'System', I think, is the part of the social contract involving Actual Game Text, modifiers to that Actual Game Text in terms of house rules, mediation of disputes about interpretation, and stuff like that.

It includes both Formalized System in the form of the Actual Game Text, and the Informal System which sits around the Formalized System and mediates the Formalized Systems application to the play activities.

Or something like that.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Ron,

Ah, yes, I knew that at one point - the Social Contract stuff is present when the System is in use and impacts it, but isn't really "part" of it.

But - that stuff you're putting in Social Contract and not System hardly qualifies as "what's needed" for collective story telling.  I guess what I'm really saying is - Ralph, collective story telling  has a System.  What were you trying to do, get Gimmick-free Universalis firmly included as "roleplaying?" :-)  

A side issue, perhaps.  As I understand it, the analysis in this thread does NOT help with the roleplaying vs. collective story telling issue.

Gordon

EDIT - for typos, clarity and to add - yup, Dana, looks right to me.

[Jonathan Walton]

So how is collective storytelling not roleplaying?  Or is that a big contentious issue that's already been well-trampled?  I guess I was just assuming that it was, since we talk about freeform as roleplaying, so I didn't think having a pre-defined system was a requirement.  And, as per the gimmick-free Universalis comment, by that definition, Fudge isn't roleplaying either, because you have to build it from suggested components.

Collective storytelling obviously has a social contract, stated or unstated.  It's not written down in books and published as part of the hobby industry, but it could be.  There are several systems for determing consensus that are used by different groups, and you'd just have to write one up for use in storytelling and you'd have a published "game" based on collective storytelling.

But I guess I walk the artificial line between storytelling and roleplaying with games like "Ever-After" anyway, so I guess I'm a bit biased.

But this thread is drifting like crazy.  I started it because I was interested in defining roleplaying along GNS lines, focusing on all the recent discussion of Creative Agendas and who has to have them in order for roleplaying to occur.  If people want to talk about other issues (system, etc.), you might want to start another thread.

[pete_darby]

Well, since I'm in the process of starting a new campaign, I'm on the inside of the first stage, establishing the social contract, where I'm the only one who's had any exposure to the "bought in a shop" part of the system (not entirely true, but we'll get to that later).

So, it went that I announced in the meeting of the local game society that I wanted to run HeroQuest this term, a heortling game in the sartarite rebellion period, haven't set a day or venue to run the game. So I've already established parts of the social contract and system, before anyone else is involved. But I'm not sharing imaginative space (except with the authors of HQ, and it's hardly a feedback loop).

Luckily for me, two old friends of mine (I've GM'd for them before) expressed an interest, and we got down to the nuts & bolts of arranging a night in our schedules, and temporarily leaving venue undecided. So more SC, only lightly touching on system, except where we 've not got players and the presumed future presence of characters.

Are we rpg'ing yet? Looking at the definition at the top of the shop:

Roleplaying = Social Contract + Exploration of Shared Imagined Space + 1 or more people with 1 or more Creative Agendas

We've got a SC, the shared imagined space is there, if only in a nebulous form, and I know I've got a creative agenda (SIM! I LOVE GLORANTHA SIM!)... but the players haven't even seen a character sheet or a rulebook yet. If it weren't for the fact that they've got a pile of RQ3 gear at home, I'd really feel I was cheating about the shared imagined space.

Well, I'd tentatively say it's RP'ing, if only because, without modifying the SC, only RPG under the terms of the definition can arise. If we throw away the rules and just turn it into a colloaborative writing project, we've changed the SC. I'd argue that we need more system than I've seen in a collaborative writing project to get RP, but I'll need to review some stuff on system to either back me up or force me into one of my now famous clarifications of my position. If the game doesn't happen for whatever reason, again the SC has changed, since the central agreement is that, come Tuesday night, my kids WILL be asleep, Jan & Jenny WILL be there, and gosh darn it, we WILL get the system defined further, and maybe do some active exploration of it.

Of course, that may be entirely circular: it's a SC to RP, therefore it's RP because of the SC.

As for the passive / active thing: I'd say instinctively, that in order for an individual to RP, they will be at least "buying into" one of the 3 main creative agenda. My gut says that the default is sim curiosity ("Let's see where this one goes"), but my gut said eat quorn last week, and you don't want to know where that ended up.

So the guys not paying attention at the table? When they're not engaging with the group in the shared imaginative space, they're not rp'ing. But, you know, there still there as part of the social contract. And it's not like you have to prioritize, say, step on up every single moment of a game to have identifiable gamist tendencies. So, you don't have to be RP'ing every moment to be in an rpg. And I'm realising just how trivial and useless it is to be able to point at someone at the table and say "Well, Jim's certainly still within the social contract, but since he's just zoning out and drawing hot elf chicks, he's not rp'ing until he opens his mouth." So I'll stop now.