Systems of group meaning negotiation.

[Alan]

I started this new thread to discuss this idea.  For background, look at the 6th through 13 message in

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=95162#95162">Shared Imagined Space and Imagination - Split


What occured to me while writing my post is that creation of meaning and creation of fantasy in RPGs are parallel group processes that interact with each other.  I think that teasing them apart might lead to insights.

Historically, RPG designs have left meaning creation to hit and miss interpretation of illustrations, flavor text, and reward systems.  Game designers in the last decade have come to focus more on systems for meaning creation - culminating in Ron's theory of Creative Agenda.  

I wonder what explicit rules for group meaning negotiation in an RPG might look like?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Maybe I'm seeing a simpler question than you are, Alan, but it seems to me as if most of the game systems out there do exactly that ... if they're oriented toward Gamist or Narrativist play.

Spiritual Attributes in The Riddle of Steel are nothing more nor less than an explicit statement of "what I want everyone to recognize as important" among the group. And they have teeth - no little measly "um, one die" bonus ... by the rules, no tweaking, that's up to twenty-five frickin' bonus dice, often re-usable.

Trollbabe's injury and scene/conflict rules? H'm ... pretty much everything in that game, actually.

Sorcerer's Humanity? What is The Sorcerer's Soul about if not meaning among the real people involved?

In terms of Gamist play, the whole experience is ... well, utterly meaningless unless there's some kind of shared "value" placed on certain kinds of competence (strategy and guts, is my favorite phrase), specified by game and/or by local interpretations. So I guess I consider meaning, reward system, and fun all to be synonymous for Gamist play, always.

Am I being too simplistic? Is there another kind of "meaning" that you're driving at?

Best,
Ron

[Alan]

Am I being too simplistic? Is there another kind of "meaning" that you're driving at?

I don't think so.  TROS and Trollbabe are examples that came to my mind of recent games with good mechanisms, I just wanted to leave the field open.

I guess I wanted to focus specifically on what kind mechanisms a game desinger could build into their rules to make meaning negotation direction during play of their game.  

But your post is notable for lack of discussion about meaning creation in simulationist games.  I'd like to think that meaning creation takes place in that agenda.  Does it?  What kind of guidelines to sim games set up?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Alan,

I'll hold off on comments about meaning in Simulationist play until the Narrativism essay is out. Until then, I'll just pay attention here to what others have to say.

Best,
Ron

[Matt Wilson]

How about all those xp bonuses for "staying in character" and "good roleplaying?" Just about every sim game I've seen has that listed in the rewards section. GMs are supposed to give out various cookies to players who do the above. Just what those terms mean is usually left open to some interpretation by the group.

[Ian Charvill]

Matt

I'm pretty sure - though I'm not in a position to check any texts - that there are gamist games with those kind of experience guidelines in them.  I think they're just 'rpgs should have experience rules to reward *role*playing not just *roll*playing' artifacts.  That's not to say you're entirely off the mark.

Meaning in a simulationist game exists at an aesthetics level.  The reward is creating and experiencing something beautiful.  I don't think you need any experience rewards to reinforce that - and indeed experience rewards of that type could strike some sim purists as breaking cause-and-effect.

I'm going to cite Nobilis as a great example of a game that has mechanics to support sim-type meaning.  The powers the characters have grants the players cogruent powers of creativity.  Creative in the sense not only of "aesthetically-gratifying thing my character can do" but also in the sense of "aesthetically gratifying imaginary element my character can bring into play".  Frex, the Power of Gardens could turn a landfill site into a hedged lawn with borders of azalias.

Within narrativism, meaning relates to ethics and morality; within gamism, meaning relates to competence and kudos; and within simulationism meaning relates to aesthetics.

[I'm guessing aesthetics is too rarified a term to generally apply to simulationism - it's a bit arty farty and all that - but just as plenty of people play narrativist without really thinking that they're grappling with big moral questions, plenty of people play simulationist without thinking of themselves as capital-A Artists)

[Alan]

I wonder if the "role-playing well" reward in gamist game is just an  hold-over from previous designs? I think Matt has something when he notes it as associated with sim play.

What Ian said about aesthetics being rewarded in sim is really interesting.  Does sim meaning creation revolves around aesthetic appreciation of the fantasy content?  Are these aesthetic judgements of primary concern to players in all sim play?  

It seems to me one difference between the three creative agendas is at what abstract level of the creative act is rewarded.  While Gamism and Narrativism reward the actual creation of meaningful situations, simulationism rewards things like acting technique and faithfulness to genre.

It is similar to the values of a certain categories of modern art, which value technique and imact over coherant meaning.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Here are some older threads to check out. As usual, consider as well the threads internally linked within them.

Interpersonal reward system
"Likely" characters (Sim essay)
Is S out of balance with G/N? - beginning with JMendes' excellent query at the bottom of the first page

Best,
Ron

[Ian Charvill]

What Ian said about aesthetics being rewarded in sim is really interesting.  Does sim meaning creation revolves around aesthetic appreciation of the fantasy content?  Are these aesthetic judgements of primary concern to players in all sim play?

To clairify, I meanth that sim play revolves around the creation and performance of stuff that has aesthetic value.  Different games will share or withold the amount of which of these people get to do.  The GM might have the job of describing the scenery in a way that is pleasing to the players, players may have the job of producing a pleasing acting performance - but these are just one way of dividing this.

In-game plausibility is an avenue to this - sort of like using perspective and shade in a picture.  Do you have to?  No, but if you don't you just limited your audience, possibly quite extremely.

It seems to me one difference between the three creative agendas is at what abstract level of the creative act is rewarded.  While Gamism and Narrativism reward the actual creation of meaningful situations, simulationism rewards things like acting technique and faithfulness to genre.

It is similar to the values of a certain categories of modern art, which value technique and imact over coherant meaning.

I'm afraid I don't have an easy time agreeing with this.  You could just as easily say that gamism rewards grasping dice probabilities or narrativism rewards author stance.  Simulationism rewards the end products of things like acting technique (a pleasing performance) and faithfulness to genre conventions (a pleasing genre narrative).

[John Kim]

It seems to me one difference between the three creative agendas is at what abstract level of the creative act is rewarded.  While Gamism and Narrativism reward the actual creation of meaningful situations, simulationism rewards things like acting technique and faithfulness to genre.

It is similar to the values of a certain categories of modern art, which value technique and imact over coherant meaning.  

Well, someone else on The Forge compared it to the difference between Modernist and Post-Modernist art -- but I can't remember who or when.  The suggestion was that Modernist was about intended meaning, where ultimately the artist himself was a part of the work.  In contrast, Post-Modernism emphasizes that meaning is created by the viewer.  (Note: I am horribly mangling this, I am sure.  I don't really know about modern art movements, and am just paraphrasing a half-remembered post.)

It seems to me that classical art can go either way.  To pick a well-known example, the Mona Lisa is widely recognized as a great work of art, but it has been endlessly debated without resolution what it (and in particular the woman's smile) means.  

I'm not sure what I should be calling Sim at this point.  Now, rgfa Threefold Simulationism certainly rejected genre faithfulness as a goal.  It would equally reject the idea of assigned meaning.  It simply produces a portrait of characters and events.  The meaning has to come from the portrait itself, not from any meta-game system of labels or points.  As I recall, most of the pro-Simulationist posters also disliked good role-playing awards bestowed on players from the GM -- I know I did.  I felt that generally these reward showy acting, and play which the GM likes.  Within my Sim games, what the PC does is the player's domain.  As GM, I don't consider myself a fit judge -- the player knows better than me what the PC would do.

[Alan]

Ian: my point is that there seems to be a difference in the function of the things the three creative agendas reward.  While narrativism and gamism reward techniques that manipulate creation of the fantasy (like understanding probabilities and using author stance), simulationism rewards techniques of _portrayal_.  

[Simulationism] would equally reject the idea of assigned meaning.  It simply produces a portrait of characters and events.  The meaning has to come from the portrait itself, not from any meta-game system of labels or points.

When you say "The meaning has to come from the portrait itself" I hear some an assumption that meaning interpretation doesn't come in until the portrait is finished.  As I said before, RPG play is an active process where meaning is constantly negotated even WHILE PERFORMANCE IS UNDERWAY.  The negotiation affects the progress of the performance itself, before any portrait is completed.

It just occured to me that we may indeed be talking about different kinds of meaning.  You seem to be restricting meaning interpretation to player interpretation of the fantasy content.  But I also include player interpretation of the actions of other players.  

This is why aesthetics jumped out at me.  Aesthetics is a system used to evaluate performance.  Meaning interpretation in a simulationist game seems to focus on evaluating the aesthetic value of a player contribution.  And it's not just about the aesthetics of the shared fantasy as a work.  It's often about the actual aesthetic value of the player performance at the table.  

Interesting.  I think that last, what John might call "immersionism", may be the extreme end of one of the fundimental axes of the simulationist agenda. I wonder what the other end looks like?  There must be other axes too.

[Ian Charvill]

I'm sorry Alan, but I just don't see how the claim that gamist mechanics "reward techniques that manipulate creation of the fantasy".

I suspect a few people have bought too deeply into Ron's phrase "drifting dream".  It's eminently feasible to conduct sim play in the mode, if we are going to use the word dream, then in the mode of a lucid dream - very deliberate and directed.  Creativity is one of the lynchpins of simulationism, but a lot of sim play has a default form of: game designer does most creating, GM does some creating and players do little creating.  That's a way of playing sim sure, but it's not sim any more than player vs. player is gamism.

Simulationism may reward techniques of portrayal in the same way gamism may reward techniques of competition (D+D 3rd ed rewards character creation as a technique of competition more than tactics, frex).  But what simulationism rewards - at the default social level - is aesthetically compelling stuff. In a lot of trad sim games the meaning that is available to the players to create may be limited, but that does not indicate that the mode itself is limited.

[John Kim]

Ian: my point is that there seems to be a difference in the function of the things the three creative agendas reward.  While narrativism and gamism reward techniques that manipulate creation of the fantasy (like understanding probabilities and using author stance), simulationism rewards techniques of _portrayal_.

Well, again, this is one of those questions of what Simulationism means.  In his http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=Pine.ULT.3.91.950711170632.8510D-100000%40rac8.wam.umd.edu&rnum=1">original 1995 formulation of the stances, Kevin Hardwick included an "In-character" stance which was separate from Actor stance.  Most of the rgfa pro-Simulationist posters disliked focus on portrayal, and instead suggested that the focus should be on in-depth imagination.  This is similar to Stanislavsky's method -- rather than thinking about what your portrayal is, you should think about what your character is thinking.  

When you say "The meaning has to come from the portrait itself" I hear some an assumption that meaning interpretation doesn't come in until the portrait is finished.  As I said before, RPG play is an active process where meaning is constantly negotated even WHILE PERFORMANCE IS UNDERWAY.  The negotiation affects the progress of the performance itself, before any portrait is completed.

It just occured to me that we may indeed be talking about different kinds of meaning.  You seem to be restricting meaning interpretation to player interpretation of the fantasy content.  But I also include player interpretation of the actions of other players.

No, I don't think that's right.  I don't think meaning waits for the end.  Pure rgfa Simulationism tends to not have any sort of tidy ending to the narrative, which can be a weak point.  I also don't think that I exclude player actions.  For that matter, fantasy content is the actions of other players -- so I'm not sure what line you are drawing.  Indeed, I would agree that the relation of player-to-PC is one of the most interesting things about RPGs.  

This is why aesthetics jumped out at me.  Aesthetics is a system used to evaluate performance.  Meaning interpretation in a simulationist game seems to focus on evaluating the aesthetic value of a player contribution.  And it's not just about the aesthetics of the shared fantasy as a work.  It's often about the actual aesthetic value of the player performance at the table.  

Interesting.  I think that last, what John might call "immersionism", may be the extreme end of one of the fundimental axes of the simulationist agenda. I wonder what the other end looks like?

I think aesthetics might be reasonable for Immersionism, but I'm not quite sure.  As for what the other end looks like, I think it is what I called "Explorationist / Fabulist" in my http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9104">Simulationism Revisited thread.  From what I read, I think that Rob Maudib's http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=40700&highlight=#40700">The Million Worlds game is an example.  

I suspect a few people have bought too deeply into Ron's phrase "drifting dream".  It's eminently feasible to conduct sim play in the mode, if we are going to use the word dream, then in the mode of a lucid dream - very deliberate and directed.  Creativity is one of the lynchpins of simulationism, but a lot of sim play has a default form of: game designer does most creating, GM does some creating and players do little creating.  That's a way of playing sim sure, but it's not sim any more than player vs. player is gamism.  

Could you be more specific here?  For example, I definitely have rgfa Simulationist leanings -- where the player is completely in charge of her PC, but that background and NPCs are handled by the GM.  However, I also feel that games are primarily about character rather than background.  In other words, if the characters attack a bunch of monsters, the meaning comes from what the characters think and feel -- not from the shape of the room or what the monsters are.  This means the bulk of creating is actually with the players.

[Alan]

I'm sorry Alan, but I just don't see how the claim that gamist mechanics "reward techniques that manipulate creation of the fantasy".

Now that you point it out, I think it is an indirect process.  Gamist play involves techniques such as the strategic creation of character, equipment choices, and other challenges to the player's cleverness. Generally, these techniques give immediate rewards in terms of power to affect the fantasy world - the ability to kill more orcs, or get around a puzzle door, etc.  Some games do award improvement points for clever solutions, while more just award the exercise of the newly won power (eg killing orcs earns XP.)

Simulationism may reward techniques of portrayal in the same way gamism may reward techniques of competition (D+D 3rd ed rewards character creation as a technique of competition more than tactics, frex).

I don't think D&D3 is a good example of simulationist design.  It's a mixed bag, so I think you can find mixed examples.  I seem to recall that D&D3.5 was recently cited as having shifted focus back toward gamism.  

I still assert that coherent gamism will reward a qualitatively different category of meaning creation - that which involves player power to affect (and hence contribute to) the shared fantasy.  While coherent simulationism will ignore or discourage the creation of player power within the Lumpley system.  Like gamism, narrativism rewards meaning creation at an abstract level.

But what simulationism rewards - at the default social level - is aesthetically compelling stuff. In a lot of trad sim games the meaning that is available to the players to create may be limited, but that does not indicate that the mode itself is limited.

I agree that the sim mode is no more limited than the other two creative agendas.  I do think that where it focuses interpretation, evaluation, and rewards is at a different level of abstraction than for the other two.  

Another brainstorm: the rpgfa "simulationism" that John is discussing involves an ironic juxtaposition of "realism-seeking" with a body of fantasy "facts."  Some role play traditions value integrity, verisimilitude, and other value judgements (meaning interpretations) - these are all things we might call measures of realism - but they are being applied to a fantasy.  Is this characteristic of Ron's simulationism too, a subset, or not required in his version?

[Alan]

Most of the gfa pro-Simulationist posters disliked focus on portrayal, and instead suggested that the focus should be on in-depth imagination.  This is similar to Stanislavsky's method -- rather than thinking about what your portrayal is, you should think about what your character is thinking.

Again, you've prompted me to look more deeply at my own thinking.  I think you're right to include both external portrayal and the externalization of ideas from in-depth imagination as things simulationist play evaluates.  And I think that, in simulationist play, both these are elements of portrayal.  Since you used the analogy - both Brando and Guiness are valued for their performance ability, even though one is a method actor and one is not.  Both restrict themselves to interpreting within a certain conceptual boundary.

(Just as an aside: I realize that rpgfa sim is an important subject to you, but I'd like to restrict discussion in this thread to Ron's usage of the term.)

For that matter, fantasy content is the actions of other players -- so I'm not sure what line you are drawing.

I'm looking from the other direction.  Fantasy content may be created by player action, but players also interpret the meaning of player actions outside the shared fantasy.  These interpetations affect what they propose for additions to the shared fantasy and how those, in turn, are interpreted.  

I think aesthetics might be reasonable for Immersionism, but I'm not quite sure.

I'm not sure if aesthetics applies for all simulationist play or not either.  This is one of the things I'm throwing out for consideration.  I want to read your link examples and get back to you after that.