The Forge Archives

In Further On Stances, Ron says:

Quote"The arrow has struck Borax the Very Clean Warrior!" This statement is irrelevant to Stance entirely.

NOT ALL ROLE-PLAYING STATEMENTS ARE MADE FROM A STANCE. Are people missing this point? Certainly, MOST role-playing statements are Stance-oriented, but statements of effect are NOT.

Um, okay.  That's fine with me.

What's it called then when you make statements of effect?  It happens all the time, we oughta have a name for it.

Gaffer Stance?

That's a joke.

Plus, it seems to me that you make decisions about the effects of things on the same couple of bases: exclusively in-game considerations, exclusively metagame considerations, some happy balance of the two.  Sounds like a Stance to me, even if it's not one of The Stances.

-lumpley Vincent

Hi Vince,

Whatever this "determination of effect is," it ain't Stance. Let's not call it one, even as a joke, as I can see hideous confusions arising if we do.

As for why and how those effects are determined, I think it is VERY dubious to divide up categories that simply mirror stances. This topic is a New Thing to Talk About, and we should figure out its nuances from the ground up, not by simply borrowing the Stance model.

Best,
Ron

I'm totally at loss on why the quoted example is "irrelevant to Stance entirely".

I've been understanding Stance as the "place" from which a participant in the game (a player) affects the game. Since the game is about something: the characters, that happens somehwere: the enviroment. In order to affect the game you either say something regarding the characters or their enviroment.

If this is false as to the definition of Stance you're using, then undoubtely I'm talking about something very different (as seen in the Further on Stance thread), perhaps this is close to The New Thing to Talk About you mention.

Don Lag,

The important issue is that the arrow did not arrive out of nowhere or move from the quiver to the bow to Borax's chest in any way on its own or through coincidences. There was someone else of MORE IMPORTANCE than the arrow who did this. Any statement about this person is a Stance. The statement about the arrow is an extension, consequence, or better, CONTINUANCE of that original Stance statement.

"The castle guard shoots ya with his arrow," says the GM. That is a Stance statement (which I call Director Stance, but DON'T give me a hard time about that right now). "The arrow does [roll roll] a critical to your head. You die." That is not a Stance statement. It is an effect or continuation of the Stance'd statement about the guard.

I'm continuing this issue on Vincent's new thread.

Best,
Ron