The Forge Archives

Hi all,

I've noticed that the "Address Premise" thread has become a thread about whether "out of character" input matters to analyzing a game for a G, N or S pulse.

I'm curious about this.  Genuinely curious.  The model explictely places Social Contract as the primary element of play, followed by Exploration, then Creative Agenda -- even before G, N, or S becomes a possibility.  Whether anybody likes it or not, this is the model.

But some people seem to want to avoid the Social Contract issues completely -- even creative agenda issues.

I'm not going to be coy here: its Marco and John.  And guys, I'm not sure why.  John wrote he suspicious of the value of OOC comments in informing checking for GNS heartbeat.  How?  The model demands it.  Social Contract is a combination of all those elements of actual people interacting with actual people.  It's how people lean in, laugh when someting does something "cool" (cool defined by Creative Agenda).  It's how I add a detail to a scene, either by suggestion or spending an in game resource, even if my PC is not in the scene, to augment what's going on.  It might be how I get up and go play a video game for a while.  All of this is a reflection of how actual people are interacting with actual people during the course of play.  Without all of these details I'm not sure how the group was behaving socially -- since the IC stuff is only a part of the interaction between these actual people actually intereacting together for four to eight hours.

Now, Marco and John, you can disagree with the model.  You can ignore it.  But it seems odd to be asking the model to explain GNS behavior, while dismissing how the model is actually constructed.  The real concern of the model is social behavior.  GNS priorities are an expression of the social behavior in question.  So how can there be talk of GNS when the social concerns are dismissed?

Why do you do this?  I'd really like to know.  

Since I have no experience with on-line play, for the moment, if you decide to answer my question, could we stick with a discussion of table top play?

Thanks,

Christopher

Quote from: John KimPersonally, I am skeptical of the huge importance placed on OOC cues.  If I am analyzing a game, the combination of in-game play and player/GM intent are of prime importance to me.  Social cues are definitely important as well, mind, but I'd look at them after the other two (although that is partly because they're a little harder to get after-the-fact or for someone who wasn't there).

Quote from: Christopher KubasikNow, Marco and John, you can disagree with the model.  You can ignore it.  But it seems odd to be asking the model to explain GNS behavior, while dismissing how the model is actually constructed.  The real concern of the model is social behavior.  GNS priorities are an expression of the social behavior in question.  So how can there be talk of GNS when the social concerns are dismissed?

Why do you do this?  I'd really like to know.  

Well, first of all, I did explicitly say that out-of-character (OOC) cues are important, so I am not totally dismissing them.  However, I do seem to consider them less important than you do when I look at games.  Naturally, I expect this is going to be a personal thing.  Some people will be more interested in one part of play than another.  But to me, all of table-top game-play is social.  i.e. An in-character conversation is still IMO social interaction between two real persons, as is playing out a combat encounter.  The subset of social actions which I find most interesting is the direct creation of story.  

Personally, I think I see OOC cues as being sort of secondary feedback. The ultimate goal of a game is the engagement and satisfaction of the participants; and the ultimate cause is their intent.  What comes in between is the method, i.e. how the game is played.  The primary means of satisfaction is (to me) the fictional in-game actions, aka the story in a broad sense.  I see OOC cues as being feedback to try to change intent, and by altering intent, to indirectly change the narrative and thus affect player satisfaction.  

That's certainly not the only valid way of looking at it, but I think it best describes my tendency.

Hi John,

Good point. I overstated your priortizations as a dismissal.

Christopher

Quote from: John Kim
Personally, I think I see OOC cues as being sort of secondary feedback. The ultimate goal of a game is the engagement and satisfaction of the participants; and the ultimate cause is their intent.  What comes in between is the method, i.e. how the game is played.  The primary means of satisfaction is (to me) the fictional in-game actions, aka the story in a broad sense.

Hi John,

To begin to understand, I need to clarify what you mean by out-of-character cues and in-character cues.

When I play, I use a wide variety of methods to communicate to my fellow players:

1) Acting out the character's gestures, expressions, and dialogue

2) Description of gestures, expressions, and dialogue in third person.

3) Describing character's internal state and memories

4) Telling players (player-to-player) relevant character background.

5) Editorial comments and suggestions: " hey, that's cool!  Wouldn't it be great if ... and so on.  (This includes non-verbal cues like body language, paying attention, interupting or not interrupting.)

I would guess that "in-character" only refers to my 1. This is when I'm acting for the character.  If that's correct, 2-5 would all out of character.  Yet, I use all four more often than the first.  They carry my major contribution to play and are by no means secondary.   I suggest that OOC communication often carries more evidence of creative agenda than IC does.

Before I say more, is this what you meant by OOC and IC?

Quote from: Christopher KubasikHi all,

I've noticed that the "Address Premise" thread has become a thread about whether "out of character" input matters to analyzing a game for a G, N or S pulse.

I'm curious about this.  Genuinely curious.  The model explictely places Social Contract as the primary element of play, followed by Exploration, then Creative Agenda -- even before G, N, or S becomes a possibility.  Whether anybody likes it or not, this is the model.

But some people seem to want to avoid the Social Contract issues completely -- even creative agenda issues.

I'm not going to be coy here: its Marco and John.  And guys, I'm not sure why.  John wrote he suspicious of the value of OOC comments in informing checking for GNS heartbeat.  How?  The model demands it.  Social Contract is a combination of all those elements of actual people interacting with actual people.  It's how people lean in, laugh when someting does something "cool" (cool defined by Creative Agenda).  It's how I add a detail to a scene, either by suggestion or spending an in game resource, even if my PC is not in the scene, to augment what's going on.  It might be how I get up and go play a video game for a while.  All of this is a reflection of how actual people are interacting with actual people during the course of play.  Without all of these details I'm not sure how the group was behaving socially -- since the IC stuff is only a part of the interaction between these actual people actually intereacting together for four to eight hours.

Now, Marco and John, you can disagree with the model.  You can ignore it.  But it seems odd to be asking the model to explain GNS behavior, while dismissing how the model is actually constructed.  The real concern of the model is social behavior.  GNS priorities are an expression of the social behavior in question.  So how can there be talk of GNS when the social concerns are dismissed?

Why do you do this?  I'd really like to know.  

Since I have no experience with on-line play, for the moment, if you decide to answer my question, could we stick with a discussion of table top play?

Thanks,

Christopher

Hello Chris,

I appreciate your wish to stay out of IRC play. But you asked (and mentioned me by name) so I'm not completely going to honor it. It throws the question into sharp relief. That's why I brought it up in the first place.

For starters: You are wrong about my address of the model. I don't want to dismiss it.

But as a model, I certainly have some questions

1. The definition of Gamist  (or whatever) play is not based on intent or on in-game events, but on social-reinforcement at the table. Therefore when Raven (in a recent thread in actual play) says this:

Quote
Here's a thought from earlier today: if you're worried about the mechanical effectiveness of your character, you aren't playing Narrativist, but Gamist.

I'm at a loss. I would assume that he means that the intent of the player will be born out in the observed behavior and that in functional play that will be assisted by the rest of the group--but Raven and Gareth were two of the major voices arguing that a player can't really know their own mind when it comes to knowing what they intend. This seems like an about face on that whole thread to me.

So I'd think maybe it's an incorrect usage of the term--but Raven's one of the guys who gets it.

Matt writes in the "address thread":

Quote
You can think, "Hmm, what would my character do?" make a choice, then act. Chances are you can see this as either Sim. or Nar. Or, you can think "Hmm, is my character willing to KILL in this situation RIGHT NOW?" decide, and act. This is answering the premise. You swing the sword. Snicker-snack. Once we all see the act in play, we can evaluate that. "Wow, that guy's a cold-blooded bastard! Or a hero. Or whatever. Premise answered. Narrativism. Neato!

Of course, as always, the player mode is expressed as intent and then we (as always) assume that the intent of the player can be read clearly  and the determination can be made (what if what your character would do would would make him willing to kill RIGHT NOW?--then it's both!).

I'm sure that it will come as no surprise to you that I have difficulty mind-reading the difference between Matt's two examples. TROS makes the distinction even triciker (IMO).

Edited to note: Both of these usages (Raven's and Matt's) make perfect sense to me. But they hinge on an internal state that is based on intent. There is absolutely nothing in etiher case that would indicate the behavior is observable or classifyable. In Matt's example if a fight occurrs, the observed behavior could be G/N/ or S ... and more examples won't (IME) make them any clearer. Data doesn't add up unless you know its value at each step of the way.

2. So when this is brought up, people say "Oh, but look, Marco, if you were *there* it wouldn't be a mind-reading exercise. One can clearly see the difference between 'what would my character do?' and 'is my character willing to do this' because of all the OOC stuff."

So I'm looking behind the curtain:

a) What OOC Stuff--and how do I know I'm interperting it correctly? (Response: Marco, you're looking for a black and white universal measure. You won't find that.)

b) I postulate IRC. In an IRC log of the game with no OOC stuff then we get to Ian's list of things.

Quote
The amount of time players spent on various scenes.
Overt textual cues - I'm guessing there's nothing to prevent players on IRC typing "Cool!" or similar.
Players (including the GM's) selection of scenes.
The tendency of players to kibbutz on other people's scenes.

So I logically examine them. This should provide us with a roadmap as to what the minimal set of data is necessary to make a GNS classification.

Cool A player says "Cool" (in the channel) when something happens. Is that something easily and obviously distinguishable by mode? If it is, then the fact that it's happening at all seems sufficient (In a game 100 "things" happen, 51 were Narratiivst, so the play is Narratiivst).

You, logically, wouldn't need the "cool" comment to score the game. And the model does NOT suggest that the observed mode of play is something anyone at the table likes (although I see what looks to me like people assuming that all the time too).

We have Selection of Scene: A scene where the PC's are forced to take dinner and talk with their adversary before the final (likely fatal) showdown. Is this G/N/or S? It sounds like a gener convention to me--but also a chance to present moral delimas. It may also simply be color to add tension for a big step-on-up show-down.

How does Ian score it? Based on what happens *in character* in the channel? No--based on the fact that the GM selected it.

So then, to know how to score it do I need to know what happened in the IC-channel? I'm not sure.

We have time spent on scenes: A assume we're gonna ignore typing speed (a pragmatic consideration, but still). What IRC removes is GM feedback on *interest*--a player dwelling on a scene might be poking around looking for a gem-of-interest that appeals to them. They might be looking (desparately and boredly) for a clue they think exists or trying to "figure out where the GM was going with a sceen" (don't laugh. I've seen some of the longest drawn out scenes in gaming happen when the player has decided the GM has someplace in mind to go with a moribund scene and it turns out s/he's wrong).

Or it might be interest.

Without body language or voice inflection how do I know which?* The fact that other players who are not there are being silent during the scene (I postulated 1-on-1 gaming to make this even harder but everyone dropped that right away)--is that politeness or quite, observational engagement. I can see an argument made for people in the same room. Over IRC, it seems impossible.

But even so--how do I grade the GNS value of the scene (let's say I presume longer times mean more interest)--how do I tell someone who's dwelling on the genre conventions and digging it from someone who's addressing premise?

Easy if I'm the guy taking the action? Yes. Easy peasy (to quote Matt)--but the defintion of the terms (and Ron's interest in that direction of thought) is designed to defeat that answer.

[Note: C. Edwards in his response says "but wait, there's a meta-channel." I specifically, in my example, took that out--so if I get rid of that, does the GNS Labeling system fail? Edwards doesn't say.]

-Marco
*even with voice inflection, I've known players to treat talking to NPC's like puzzles to be solved so a big conversation with a villain could be N, S, or G even with interest.

Quote from: Alan

Quote from: John KimPersonally, I think I see OOC cues as being sort of secondary feedback. The ultimate goal of a game is the engagement and satisfaction of the participants; and the ultimate cause is their intent.  What comes in between is the method, i.e. how the game is played.  The primary means of satisfaction is (to me) the fictional in-game actions, aka the story in a broad sense.  

To begin to understand, I need to clarify what you mean by out-of-character cues and in-character cues.

When I play, I use a wide variety of methods to communicate to my fellow players:
1) Acting out the character's gestures, expressions, and dialogue
2) Description of gestures, expressions, and dialogue in third person.
3) Describing character's internal state and memories
4) Telling players (player-to-player) relevant character background.
5) Editorial comments and suggestions: " hey, that's cool!  Wouldn't it be great if ... and so on.  (This includes non-verbal cues like body language, paying attention, interupting or not interrupting.)

I would guess that "in-character" only refers to my 1.

No, I'm referring to 1-4.  Basically, stuff which would show up in a detailed game write-up like say the http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/vinland/campaign/">session logs of my Vinland game, minus some footnotes.  Basically, it seems to me that #5 receives an inordinate amount of attention as far as classifying the Creative Agenda of the game -- compared to who the characters are and what they do (#1-#4).  I think this is similar to Marco's reaction, though I haven't completely followed his comments yet.

Hi Marco,

Thanks for the reply.

I know you carefully laid out your reasons for switching to in-game only transcripts for "labelling"... but I still don't get it.  (I'm really sorry about this, by the way.  Feeling thick is not my normal mode.)

The model is predicated on cues picked up between players on all levels of interaction.  You've removed a lot of cues in the belief that you're still operating on at least a "minimal" set of cues.  Is it possible you're now *under* the minimal set of cues needed for observation.  

I guess I'm not sure how you've defined minimal in a model which says, "We need to look at everything."

What occurrs to me is that by playing this way (turning off OOC chat so that not only is there only a transcript of in-game play, but no one had a chance to talk to each other in any other form), you're setting up a Social Contract that says, "We deal with each other as ourselves as little as possible."  Which is cool...  But then there would have to be other details revealed to get a better understanding of what's going on: How did the players meet?  Did they just log on as strangers and start playing?  Was there any prepereration or is this an ongoing thing anyone can join?

See, these issues -- and many more, even without OOC records -- are all part of play.  To try to ignore them is to create a hypothetical in a vacuum -- and the model is explicitely about not playing a vacuum.

So, to go further with your exampe, I'd have to know all of those details, and more above -- what is the Social Contract, what is the Creative Agenda, who are the players, do they know each other, how do they arrive, what kind of time commitment is involved....

Without that, you're seeing the model as some sort of machine to lable play GNS.  That's not it at all.  GNS issues are is how the Social Contract, the Exploration and Creative Agenda are engaged to manifest the Social Contract, Exporation and Creative Agenda between people.

Right?

Best,
Christopher

Quote from: MarcoI'm at a loss. I would assume that he means that the intent of the player will be born out in the observed behavior and that in functional play that will be assisted by the rest of the group--but Raven and Gareth were two of the major voices arguing that a player can't really know their own mind when it comes to knowing what they intend. This seems like an about face on that whole thread to me.

Good catch, Marco, but there's an explanation embedded in the context of discussion in the other thread.

The reason I say it's Gamist play behavior is because that's what it looks like from his reactions to the events in game: worrying about character effectiveness. I still stand by that the player does not know his internal state in relation to intention, he doesn't...but he does know how he feels about a particular event, but it only comes out truthfully in the individual's reactions to play events.

I would bet that the player believes, since he's playing Sorcerer, that it was a Narrativist game -- but that is precisely why I formulated the question about his reactions to failure...ie: "what's character effectiveness or success/failure got to do with it?"

I can't say for certain, however, because I don't have all the details -- it's a best guess based on limited obvservational data, but it does underscore an important part about player pyschology: they may think they're doing X when they're really doing Y, and only the behavior and reactions to events will tell, not the player themselves.

Note that I also brought it up as a point to be discussed, so its up in the air right now. I'm waiting for someone to come along and say, "Yeah, I think there's something there" or "You're wrong because..."

Other than that, "What Christopher said," which the above (I think) supports nicely.

Hi Guys,

Having just read the refferenced thread in question, referring to Sorcerer stuff:

So, at the table, a guy says, "My guy does cool items X, Y and Z."

The GM gives him a couple of extra dice.

He rolls and doesn't succeed.

There's a look on his face.  The GM says, "What?"  He says, "After all that I botched it."  "No," says the GM, "The issue is, your guy made a choice about killing that kid.  That's the cool part."

At this point the player might smile, say, "Oh, neat," and scoop up the dice for the next Humanity roll.  Or he might say, "No.  I really wanted to kick this guy's ass."  This second comment might lead to clarification about what expectations everyone at the table has for that night's fun (and future night as well.)

See, right there, that's a lot of behavior at the table that revealing Creative Agenda.  It all matters.  It's what its all about.  

We're not doing Black Magic here, nor some Behavioral Science techniques on par with the Foundation's Psychohistory.  It's just a matter of, you know, people hanging out, working and playing together to make somethihg happen.

Best,
Christopher

Marco,

I think the focus on IRC play is a red herring in this discussion.  I have done an extensive amount of IRC role-playing over the last four or five years, and in my experience, the biggest problem with it is that without any of the nonverbal cues, you can't figure out expectations, and thus wind up with the most dysfunctional, incoherent play.  This is more or less what GNS predicts, and is therefore actually supporting the model as expressed.

The limitation is one in IRC itself, not in GNS.

As a side issue, it's been made clear by every example of behavior that the only behaviors that matter are those that reveal intent (and most such examples feature the player explicitly saying what his intent was).  But do we really want to resurrect the intent vs behavior debate again at this point?  It seems like a dead horse to me.

Edit: greyorm, I have actually had IRC play work for me on occasion.  However, it's only been through extensive "OOC" discussions on what everyone wants.  For me, anyway, trying to figure it out on the fly during play is essentially impossible.  But I don't want to make this into a discussion on IRC.

I utterly and completely disagree with Justin's assessment.
Having played on-line via chat, with a large selection of different groups and people, much of that via IRC, I find that the non-verbal cues of players are replaced with other cues more suited to expression via the medium.

Being that these cues exist, play can be examined and expectations realized, or apparently the whole of my gaming life for the last decade is unexaminable from a GNS standpoint -- which I do not believe because it is provably untrue.

However, as Justin says, I find the whole "IRC issue" a red herring precisely because of this. It is clouding the actual question by enforcing a medium upon it, and discussion of whether or not it provides or fails to provide these cues not only belongs in an entirely seperate thread, but only serves to further confuse things here.

Justin,

This isn't a question about the validity of the theory in predicting a coherent play session (or about proving the theory "wrong"). I certainly agree that the more OOC conversation there is, the greater chances of a good game. I don't need a theory to tell me that though.

The reason it's relevant is this:

If the definition of a GNS mode of play *requires* more information than you'd find in an IRC channel log then you get some very strange situations. You get games where the protagonists constantly address moral issues but can never be labeled Narrativist. You get games that are constant hack and slash but can't be labeled Gamist. You get games of exploration with neither moral nor challenge issues but they can't be labeled Sim.

Why? Because (and C. Edwards suggests this is true on the other thread) you don't have the data.

The common usage of the terms (Matt's example of Sim vs. Nar) here, IMO, is at odds with the technical definitions of the terms.

That is, the terms don't apply to intent--but what the player worries about, thinks, or intends is usually the start point for the explanation and the assumption is made that this will produce observable behavior that is easy to interpert correctly.

-Marco

Quote from: MarcoIf the definition of a GNS mode of play *requires* more information than you'd find in an IRC channel log then you get some very strange situations.  You get games where the protagonists constantly address moral issues but can never be labeled Narrativist. You get games that are constant hack and slash but can't be labeled Gamist. You get games of exploration with neither moral nor challenge issues but they can't be labeled Sim.

Why? Because (and C. Edwards suggests this is true on the other thread) you don't have the data.

If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

If an observer cannot detect the GNS mode, were GNS modes present in play?

Answer the questions however you will.  That fact is that IRC is totally irrelevant to the issue at hand.

Marco,

I think you're running after a big fat red herring. "What the protagonists do" has no bearing on whether or not an instance of play is Narrativist. That was the whole point of my original thread about fatalist characters. Narrativism is about what the players do. In the words of Ron, it's about the meta-game priorities of the real people. I play on IRC constantly - many of our games are Narrativist. In some cases, prioritization has been as explcit as a pregame statement of "OK, here's the premise that we'll address in this game."

Marco,

Hey, I had an idea that might help. Think of it this way:

There is no "in-game." All role-playing is "meta-game." There's no such thing as "in character," because there are no "characters." There's only a bunch of people sitting around imagining.

There are two layers here... what the individual player imagines in his private thoughts, and the group output that consists of the combied expressed thoughts of the group as a whole.

Examining a single participant's contribution to the group output tells you what that participant wants the group output to be like.

And, that's pretty much all there is to it. "What players want" is the same thing as "prioritizing." All GNS does is identify and classify them. GNS is a catlogue of "things to want." If several players simultaneously want incompatible things, then you've got incoherence.

So yeah, you should be able to identify a player's GNS priorities by just observing the shared reality. But it *is* the shared reality that you have to look at. We're talking about indicative trends here. Isolated examples (such as have been posted) are insufficient.

Also, even though simply observing the shared reality is *sufficient* to determine GNS priorities, doing so presumes that actual play has already concluded. I.e., you can identify GNS priorities after the fact, but by then it's too late - any incoherence has already happened.

It's all about what the players do. Sure, what they do with the imagined reality can tell you what you want to know. But what they do *outside* the imagined reality can help out a lot. It can make things clearer faster.

We want YOU to stop incoherence before it starts!

;)