Creative Agenda only retroactive?

[Jonathan Walton]

I think that M.J. and I are simply letting those "lurking intentions" take care of themselves - which is to say, remain absent from the analysis.

Ron, I get this.  I really do.  Had issues before, but I'm really grokking your model now, I think.  That's why I said I don't think the omission of unrealized intentions is a problem for your model.

But this does make your model non-Intentionalist.  This isn't a bad thing.  Intentionalism has a LOT of problems.

BUT (and this is John's point, I think), most artists understand their artwork based on their own intentions, not the results.  When I look at a game or other work that I've created, I often think of it in terms of what I want it to be, not what it is.  You've said that the Storyteller system suffers from this, claiming to be something that it isn't.

Your model implies that, until we actually play a game (or, better yet, observe others playing a game), we don't really know much about it.  All we have is intentions and ideas, but no demonstrated qualities.

Am I wrong in this reading?  This is not intended as a criticism, just a clarification.  You're taking a very pragmatist approach, where any idealized vision means nothing, compared to what actually works.

I don't want you to convince me that this approach is the only valuble or correct one (even if it is), just clarify that this is where you are coming from.

I think much of my earlier misunderstanding of your model came from not understanding the philosophical background.  EVERYONE talks about Intentionalist interpretations of artwork, all the freakin' time ("I wonder what he meant by that..."  "Why did she choose to do it that way..."), so I assumed that's where you were coming from, especially with language like "Creative Agenda," which sounds a lot like "Creative Intent."

Now that your "Proof-is-in-the-Pudding" attitude is clearer to me, your model of roleplaying, the Forge's focus on Actual Play, and GNS are all much, much clearer.  That is, if I do finally get it, and aren't just confusing myself again.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jonathan,

Dead bang center.

One of the connotations of "agenda," as a term, which makes it at least a little better than (say) "goal" and much better than "intent," is that one can have an agenda without understanding or verbalizing it, and that agendas are often expressed only as actions or outcomes.

All possible misunderstandings of my use of the term are founded in Intentionalist readings, as you say. I'm sure you'll appreciate that an evolutionary biologist with one foot firmly planted in the study of behavior is well-accustomed to the inevitability of such readings, especially when they're misplaced, despite any and all verbal care to the contrary.

Your model implies that, until we actually play a game (or, better yet, observe others playing a game), we don't really know much about it. All we have is intentions and ideas, but no demonstrated qualities.

Correct. This also is why I advocate actually playing one's own game designs through each draft, as much as possible. And yes, the integration among the Indie Design, Actual Play, and the two theory forums is central to the Forge as a website.

It's also why people often get confused about the relationship of theory, which is about play, to the issues of game design and publishing. I am continually confronted with people who think the theory is specifically about game design, when it's more accurate to say that game design, in order to be useful, needs to satisfy the internal demands of play suggested by the theory.

Best,
Ron

[John Kim]

BUT (and this is John's point, I think), most artists understand their artwork based on their own intentions, not the results.  When I look at a game or other work that I've created, I often think of it in terms of what I want it to be, not what it is.  You've said that the Storyteller system suffers from this, claiming to be something that it isn't.  

Or at least, an artists' view of his own results is heavily colored by his intentions.  

I'm not sure I entirely understand how you are using "Intentionalist", but I think it relates to a discussion I had with Chris Lehrich about  constructive theories and analytical theories.  A good example of constructive theory is Lajos Egri (whom I am reading now).  He tries to teach methods for how to write a good dramatic script.  When you just have a blank piece of paper, all you have is intent.  The constructive theory helps to convert your intent into results.  In contrast to this are analytic theories, like maybe Barthes or Genet.  They try to teach how to understand and analyze existing works.  These tend to look solely at displayed characteristics rather than intent.  Now, if there were a grand scientific theory of all literature, then these two might be the same.  And of course they overlap and blend into each other.  But the distinction makes some sense to me.  

My point is that it is reasonable to look at behavior instead of intent -- but there is also use for looking at intent.  As you say, Jonathan, intent is important socially.  i.e. If someone bumps into me, I want to know if it was a deliberate slight or an accident.  If I look at an artistic work, I am curious about what the artist is trying to say.  I'm not sure how it would fit in with GNS per se, but I think it is interesting to look at.

[Jonathan Walton]

*Does the "I've-finally-understood-Ron's-model" dance!*

Thanks, Ron, for walking me through it and dealing with all the crap it took to get me to this point.

I'm not sure I entirely understand how you are using "Intentionalist"...

Sure.  I'm using it as it is often understood in Aesthetic Theory.  There are traditionally two camps on issues of intent.  First, "Intentionalism" (supported by writers like Carroll, Danto, and Meskin), which claims that an authors's actual intentions are important to interpretation, and its opposition, "Anti-intentionalism" (for instance, Beardsley and Nathan), which claims that an author's actual intentions are immaterial to interpretation or reception of a work.  There's a lot of discussion that revolves around the issue of "the death of the artist."  At what point does a work become public and/or an artist stop having the right to say how the art is meant to be interpreted?

Anti-intentionalists are often Proof-is-in-the-Pudding folks, who'd really like Ron's model, but there are issues here too.  For instance, some experimental types of art seem to only be fully enjoyable if you know what the author is trying to do.  For example, so-called "Conceptual Art," like writing down whatever you were doing when a random timer beeps (http://www.museumofconceptualart.com/clockworks/clockworks.html).  If you just read the list, you wouldn't have the same aesthetic experience as someone who read the list and knew the author's intent.  Or take the classical music of Iannis Xenakis, who wrote by using complex algorithms to calulate his music.  You can't listen to the music and figure out what the hell is going on.  You have to know something about what the author had in mind.

Hope that helps.

My point is that it is reasonable to look at behavior instead of intent -- but there is also use for looking at intent.

Totally.  And I fully agree with you.  Ron's model has only begun to examine how we translate intentions into actual play (Techniques and Ephermera, basically).  

I don't think we've even shown the relationship between intentions and demonstrated Creative Agenda, since they can be completely different, potentially.  I'm still not sure how to address situations where people are exhibiting Creative Agendas that they don't intend, and want to learn how to change them.  This was an issue in my roleplaying group for YEARS.  Everybody realized that we were playing in a strange Gamist/Sim hybrid (though we wouldn't have been able to call it that, obviously) that wasn't very satisfying to many of us, but we didn't know how to change.

If, in some way or another, we can figure out how to exhibit the Creative Agenda we intent to (though various Techniques and Ephemera), I think we'll have accomplished something even more valuble.  And we've only started to answer that question...

[Mark Johnson]

Ron,

The trumpet analogy was excellent.  Is it ok if I use it elsewhere?

Johnathan,

Great thread.  I have been quietly watching from the sides and agree with most of what has been said.  

Ron's model has only begun to examine how we translate intentions into actual play (Techniques and Ephermera, basically).  

While GNS may always be a work-in-progress, with the publication of the upcoming Narrativist essay and the incorporation of emphemera into the model, one does feel that GNS as a theory itself is mainly complete.  It may be that there will be a post-GNS level of theories that will identify the sources of creative agenda, intent and how intent gets translated into actual play.  But I simply don't think that the epistemological basis of GNS really allows most of these theories to be addressed, nor do I think that post-GNS commentary will have much hope of broad acceptance in the RPG community.  On the other hand, post-GNS might be better at analyzing non-RPGs for parallels since it will be more concerned in the sources of creativity rather than the social interaction (which is addressed at the GNS theory level).

Commentary on exactly what GNS theory might entail should probably be conducted in a new thread.

Later,
Mark

[Eero Tuovinen]

Anti-intentionalists are often Proof-is-in-the-Pudding folks, who'd really like Ron's model, but there are issues here too.  For instance, some experimental types of art seem to only be fully enjoyable if you know what the author is trying to do.

Actually, this is a categorisation mistake on the part of the theorist. All things that affect the interpretation affect the interpretation, be they part of the work or not, and thus it's the business of the artist to delineate what, exactly, constitutes his piece. In the random timer example the work is largely incomprehensible and thus bad if the explanation is not a part of it. There's no reason to analyse the explanation as something distinct from the piece of art in question. There is as much basis for that as there is for evaluating a statue only from one side. Possible, but in what sense that is an evaluation of the statue?


     - E.T., the strikes-from-shadows art theorist

[M. J. Young]

EVERYONE talks about Intentionalist interpretations of artwork, all the freakin' time ("I wonder what he meant by that..."  "Why did she choose to do it that way..."),

Ah, but even here we can see that the word "intent" can be answered on many levels.

[*]He did that because it is a favorite technique of his.[*]He did that because that technique works well to accomplish this, which is what he wished to accomplish here.[*]He did that because he is very bad at doing this, which would have worked better had he had the confidence to execute it, but this was an adequate substitute.[*]He did that because he has issues with his upbringing that are reflected in his work.[/list:u]All of those might be true, and all of them might answer the question "why".

If someone bumps into me, I want to know if it was a deliberate slight or an accident.

This is really where intent lies, in my understanding. This is the legal definition of "intent": did he intend to hit John, or did he not intend to hit John? Now, if he hit John once, we might be lost on the subject; he could tell us anything he wants. However, if he hits John repeatedly, or if he similarly hits a lot of people, then we begin to suspect that either he lacks motor control and is a danger to himself and others, or he intends to hit people. Similarly, if he smiles or laughs, apologizes insincerely, points and snickers, tells his friends about how he pulled one over on us--well, now we're pretty sure of his intent. In the end we don't care what he says his intent was, and we might not always care what he thought his intent was; we care about what his actions reveal about his actual intent.

I hope that doesn't confuse things; you've got it, but I thought this might help some still struggling with it.

--M. J. Young

[John Kim]

If someone bumps into me, I want to know if it was a deliberate slight or an accident.

This is really where intent lies, in my understanding. This is the legal definition of "intent": did he intend to hit John, or did he not intend to hit John? Now, if he hit John once, we might be lost on the subject; he could tell us anything he wants. However, if he hits John repeatedly, or if he similarly hits a lot of people, then we begin to suspect that either he lacks motor control and is a danger to himself and others, or he intends to hit people. Similarly, if he smiles or laughs, apologizes insincerely, points and snickers, tells his friends about how he pulled one over on us--well, now we're pretty sure of his intent. In the end we don't care what he says his intent was, and we might not always care what he thought his intent was; we care about what his actions reveal about his actual intent.

Well, in this case, I would care about the actual intent -- the intended meaning behind the actions.  I don't give a shit about being bumped if it isn't intentional.  If he genuinely has poor motor control and keeps bumping me, I'm not going to hold it against him.  I'm not being permanently harmed or anything.  

It is not the physical action itself which potentially offends me, it is the meaning communicated.  For example, this could apply retroactively.  For example, the bumper might tell me that he has a nervous medical condition.  I accept that, and don't mind that he keeps knocking into me.  A year later, I find out that he was lying the whole time.  Even if he never bumps into me again, I now re-interpret all of the previous bumps and it changes my opinion of him.  

Going a little bit further, if someone moves their lips and makes noises at me, I care about what those words mean.  I don't react to the fact that the lips have moved, I react to what I think the speaker is trying to say.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

This thread has, I think, served its primary purpose. John, although what you're now talking about is - to use your term - interesting, I'm not sure that it really needs to get hashed out for purposes of talking about models of role-playing, or their utility.

The reason I say this is that, whatever method of divining "intent" you would use with the bumping-person, it must involve further information, a basis for comparison, and a degree of inference, just as in your example. Great! That's all we're talking about. That's the point of agreement between what everyone has said so far. I don't see any basis for blowing up smaller and smaller philosophical bits into longer and longer posts.

However, I don't want to act as shutter-down at the moment, so if you guys really want to keep going on generalized issues of intention and meaning, feel free ... but please consider whether that discussion is better suited to private email or similar.

Best,
Ron