At the roots of roleplaying

[rgrassi]

Is there some way in which you think what you are saying disagrees with the body of ideas here at the Forge?
What are you saying which seems contentious or worthy of discussion?

Thanks for the kind reply.
My post wasn't intented to disagree with the "body of ideas", rather to suggest the existence of "more than one imagined space" that may be useful to expand the model and correctly describe some actual playing.
For instance, the synchronization of the SIS with the Personal Spaces would take rid of 'issues' like these:
http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=460

Or, the existence of "more than imagined space" (one at player level, one for the unvalidated moves, one for the shared) is given as proved? If so, I really excuse for this post.
Cheers,
Rob

[Adam Dray]

Rob,

For more reading on current (well-established) Forge theory about the stuff in steps 2-4, do some searching for "IIEE," which are the steps by which a player's Intent is Initiated, Executed, and becomes an Effect of the SIS.

Vincent recently wrote a short game, ROCK OF TAHAMAAT, SPACE TYRANT, to illustrate a system that clearly delineates the IIEE steps. It's pretty cool. Check it out.

[rgrassi]

Thank you Adam... I'll have a look.
Anyway, I'm probably not good to say it, but I'm talking about two more necessary "spaces" to be considered in the System.
Bye,
Rob

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Rob,

As I see it, the existence of personal imagined spaces is not necessary to include in the model. The model concerns only what is done with the shared imagined spaces, and if personal imagined spaces are necessary or involved in the production of the shared ones, then they can be.

As an analogy - we might be talking about the room we are role-playing in together, or if on-line, the separate rooms we happen to be sitting in. Various questions or relevant points might be raised about how those rooms affect the role-playing experience for all of us. Yet even though it's true that without the larger buildings those rooms are part of, the rooms would not exist ... and even though it's true that without cities and towns those buildings wouldn't exist ... only the rooms themselves are observably relevant to the role-playing experience.

Your focus on the personal imagined spaces is true in the same way, as I see it. Yes, without them, there is no SIS. But so what? Role-playing is composed of and utilizes the SIS, exactly in the same way music utilizes sound or literature utilizes prose. I don't need to consider sounds outside the music while talking about the music; I don't need to consider marks on pages which aren't prose when talking about a work of literature. I don't need to consider imagined content outside the SIS when talking about how role-playing works.

I agree that the Anyway discussion is full of logical problems. But that is Anyway's problem, more specifically Vincent's, not the Forge's.

We don't have to fight about this topic. You've made a very good case for talking about how personal imagination operates in the socially-creative process of role-playing, and as I wrote above, I do not consider the wholly personal imaginative side of role-playing to be trivial or unimportant at the personal level. I've posted to make my slightly differing perspective clear, not to refute or to devalue yours. At this point, I think I understand what you're saying pretty well, and I hope my views are equally clear to you. That's really the only goal of the discussion.

Are you interested in talking about the sequential vs. harmonic issue?

Best, Ron

[rgrassi]

We don't have to fight about this topic.

Oh no... please.
But, I've a lot of things and examples to demonstrate why "Personal" and "Unvalidated" Imagined Spaces are, by far, more important than SIS and so, I think they should be an important part of the model.
If you agree, anyway, I'll be back on that in the next days.
(By the way, these 'process' activities do not completely map with IIEE, because you don't know a-priori what the players say explicitly, and the granularity [i.e. details about characters, setting, situation, color, and so on] of what is said is known only to the players taking part to session. I'll be back on this, anyway, if you agree).

Are you interested in talking about the sequential vs. harmonic issue?

Interested, but we've to agree, before, what you mean by harmonic.
If you mean that (1) and (2 a,b) may be looped until moving to (3) I agree with you and there's no need to discuss.
But (1) always preceeds (2). Meaning that when the sequence is started it begins always from (1) [personal level] and moves to (2) [validation level].
Rob

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Rob,

Please do continue with your thoughts, and I'm interested to know what you mean by importance.

We agree about the harmonic issue after all. A kind of 1-2-1-2-1-2-3 is what I had mind, especially if the alternating 1's and 2's become something of a blur with an identity of its own. Specifying that it must start with 1 is an interesting claim ... could not a person be primarily inspired by what someone else says?

Best, Ron

[rgrassi]

Hi Rob, Please do continue with your thoughts, and I'm interested to know what you mean by importance.

Ok, thanks. In order to consolidate my arguments I'll start right from your comment below.

We agree about the harmonic issue after all. A kind of 1-2-1-2-1-2-3 is what I had mind, especially if the alternating 1's and 2's become something of a blur with an identity of its own. Specifying that it must start with 1 is an interesting claim ... could not a person be primarily inspired by what someone else says?

This comment needs two clarifications, IMO. The first one is about the 'harmonicity'. The second one I'll assume as the entry point to the argumentation about the importance of other spaces.

1) [About the harmonicity] Of course it all depends on how we want to 'modelize' (i.e. represent) the flux. We may see it as a 'cascade' model, and in this case (1) is the starting point or a 'circular' model. Specifically, yours "a person be primarily inspired by what someone else says" may come from (4) [what's already been explicitly said and agreed to be in the SIS and is incorporated into the Personal Space] or from [2] [what must be validated]. In other words, (1) may have connection with 2 and 4 but not with 3.

2) [About the importance of the other spaces] Let's start with my first argument. If you agree with me about the existence of the spaces and have a look at the 'chain' of steps, we see that in a normal rpg session, the main steps invoked are most probably 1 and 2. (i.e. generation of the desired event in one player's brain and submission for group acceptance and validation). SIS is only used in step 3, which is invoked very few times and is only "passively updated" after the validation space has been taken into account. So, my first argument is about the 'number of times' the personal and validation spaces are invoked, which is by far more high than the SIS.

[Callan S.]

Hello Rob,

When reading a book, one might try and not just read the words but try and figure out what the authors trying to get at. Are you talking about something like not just reading the SIS, but also trying to figure out what any individual contributing author was trying to get at with his contribution? Ie what he's trying to get at is, to some degree, in his head, not the SIS? I may be way off, so just a quick short post asking, in case it helps at all?

[Ron Edwards]

I see where the problem is, Rob.

My formulation of the SIS includes both #2 and #3. The very interjection of voice and body-language into the social space, as long as it involves the imagined material, is the medium.

I think you might be conceiving of the SIS as fully-established product. Whereas I conceive of it as the production. I'm not looking at only the picture, I'm looking at the paint being painted, making the picture.

I look forward to your response to Callan as well.

Best, Ron

[rgrassi]

@Callan

Are you talking about something like not just reading the SIS, but also trying to figure out what any individual contributing author was trying to get at with his contribution?

Exactly. Each contribution is a "proposed change" for the SIS. In order to be a SHARED space you need a 'sharing' phase. "Sharing phase" involves a "Personal Space" (in which just one of the many possible imagined moves is selected) and a "Validation Space". "Validation Space" is like a chalkboard take takes into account the "possible states of the SIS". After the validation only a precise event is 'shared' and incorporated into the SIS. The chalkboard is 'clean' and is ready to receive a new imaginary event to be validated between players.
In most cases narration games (I'm think about parlour games) don't have a validation space and the narrated fiction flows directly from the personal space to the SIS. Validation space is fundamental for rpg (far more than the SIS) and is the real difference between rpg and parlour games, IMHO.

@Ron
I see that your formulation of SIS involves #2 and #3, but, given that IMO the real social interaction occurs mostly in #2 (and not in #3) the formulation of a Validation Space takes rid of many 'false' problems, such as, for instance:
- Retroactive Continuity. Nothing is really happened in the SIS, because it's the validation space that is taking care about the possible resulting SIS.

As long as the proposed events are not fully validated and incorporated into the SIS we're still talking on the chalkboard about a 'draft' of the new SIS to be released. If you (or some of you) is aware about the Change Management Process should clearly have in mind what I'm talking about.
Using your metaphor of the paints, I'm talking about:
1 paint in the mind of the author (Personal Space)
1 'draft' paint to make tests (Validation Space)
1 final paint (Shared Space)

Rob

[contracycle]

Well, I know a fair bit about change management, and I understand the analogy you are drawing.  But I think it undermines your argument.  If you assert that the "unvalidated space" is more important than the SIS, then this is tantamount to claiming that the change log is more important than the business.  This is clearly untrue.  Consider that change management, despite best efforts, is capable of making mistakes.  When does that mistake come to light?  When the rubber meets the road, when the change is implemented.  Change management may be useful, necessary, but it is still secondary to the real deal, which is the actual implementation.

Further, I think you understimate how much 3 may be referenced after the fact.  It is much less useful to merely observe that X was swapped for Y than to see that X was was swapped for Y because of this or that reason, or in order to achieve this or that goal.  The negotiation itself establishes norms and purposes of the group.

[Callan S.]

Well, in terms of change that's an interesting emphasis shift. A buisiness wouldn't exist without someone having thought of it to begin with. Are changes really less important than rubber on road? Or are they the very origin of the buisiness, and thus actually more important?

To add some wild theory, does this, as a cultural trend, happen in roleplay? The imaginative 'mass' (I'll call it that for this post) has it emphasis shifted from being the creation of the most important thing, to being the most important thing and the changes are less important? Merely a change log? What do you think, Rob? Are you arguing against this emphasis change?

Oh, even wilder - in a buisiness I'd contend that people think the buisiness chugs along by itself, regardless - so they shrug, cease thinking about it and do the cycle of tasks they are used to doing. The very tasks that make anything actually happen! It's a self fulfilling prophesy, that the buisness will chug along regardless, so don't think about it. Because if you don't think about it (and just go through tasks by habit), it will indeed do that! So the wild bit is, in common roleplay culture, does the imaginative mass (the SIS) start to be seen as something that chugs along regardless, and thus that prophesy is self fulfilled? And that's what makes this perception that these things we do are merely a 'change log' so to speak and not the most important thing. Ie, the creators of everything and thus, atleast in those terms, more important thing, becomes simply becomes 'change management' so to speak and seen as secondary to the imaginative mass.

Ok, I'll stop! The first paragraphs question would have been enough, probably.

[rgrassi]

A lot of stuff to discuss. Just leave me some time in order to reply because I don't want to make things more complex than they are adding layers of words.
More, I think I need a clarification about an assumption I'm making that may be wrong.
When we talk about "SHARED Imagined Space" are we intendingit as "Shared AND agreed", "Shared for agreement" or just "Shared"? Sharing and agreement are not necessarily subsequential nor they're connected in any way. There may be agreement without sharing and sharing without agreement.
Can someone pleasy clarify on this?
I'll wait an answer before going on  with my reply.
Thanks in advance,
Rob

[Adam Dray]

It's shared and agreed.

[M. Burrell]

I must confess I'd lost track of where this thread was for a while.

I also seem to have made a fool of myself and hadn't anticipated my somewhat impetuous comments might fall under the gaze of stern and masterly ludographers. Terrifying.

The point I was trying to make was a broader, somewhat philosophic comment on the necessarily contrived nature of shared imagination - a self evident and, in hindsight, banal observation. My error was attempting to use the Forge's lexicon - terms I have yet to fully appreciate in both scope and meaning. I thank those who have patiently pointed out my flawed assumptions and apologise for any feathers misplaced.  It seems this schoolboy must return to his books!

Thanks,
Mike.