[Theory] Let's have a good look at Colour, again

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hello Chance

Since you ask, we're not really talking about that. My observation is that Colour has a profound influence on System, Situation, Characters and even Setting, yet the definitions people give of Colour is usually one more or less like yours, completely skipping or even indicating contrary notions ("details that do not change resolution") to what I observe.
My question is, should that aspect of Colour be added to the definition of the beast itself or should it be acknowledged as another, related, phenomenon?

Actually, some thinking about how these things usually work has led me to not especially want to answer the question right now. I mean, there's no official regulatory organism who can validate any term anyway. So the best I can achieve is to generate healthy discussion on the topic and see how (if at all) it influences people's way of talking about Colour in the long run.

A lot of good points have been made in this thread and I was able to connect to some other topics. My thinking has been enriched and now I need some time and further play to reflect.
Maybe it turns out to be a very minor point in the end: a lot of "philosophical" problems are often just a matter of wording. Maybe it's more fundamental and I'll include it in my future designs and feedback (AP and discussions of other designs). Time will tell.

[JoyWriter]

Chance, most of that is about a game text, rather than a game in play. I've seen colour used to refer to that before, but Christoph was referring more to an experience of poetic logic created in play that becomes sufficient to significantly define how people play.

So it's different from your description in two ways, scope/power/substantial-ness, and because it's a description of the stuff they were creating then and not a predefined thing they started with.

What I've tried to do is create a positive definition of colour, ie what it is to those who love it and put it square in the centre of their vision, rather than being the "everything else" of someone else's model. Now you can draw analogy to how "right to dream" has grown into a specific thing in forge terminology/understanding, but there is an important difference:

When you define a creative agenda in terms of "it's" own logic, that's fine, because they are supposed to be separate, they don't have (or aren't currently defined as having) any outsides where they must interact or coexist with the other agendas.

But system/colour/situation/character must behave differently, because even when they are not centre focus, they are supposed to be there doing backup for the others, character must be both complex characterisations, and the fact that some player is using a character as a vehicle, because in the first situation the player is focusing on it, and in the latter they are not, but it's still supposed to be there. In the same way, a system could be an intricate mass of interlocking calculations and judgement calls backed up by checks and balances, or it could be "John's word goes", and colour could be vague washes of rom-com lightness, or the kind of barely spoken and complex magic symbolism Marshal loves.

They have to be able to be the "everything else" for the other elements in different games, because between them they are supposed to encompass the entire shared creative act!

So colour, like all the other elements, should be defined so that it is able to vary in play between different poles of importance for different people. And we should be able to distinguish between colour defined going into the game; background colour (I finally found the word for what I was going at) and the colour of the moment in play.

Now all of that assumes you actually want to define terms in a model to that degree of accuracy!

[chance.thirteen]

How do you think the model, or any model, deals with something that goes from background color to the color of the experience itself? And how does that relate to giving an award?

Is there some fine insight to be gained? I could see the "poetic" end of the spectrum being a goal in itself, where the experience feels right to the player. Where does that fit?

[Lior Wehrli]

Sorry to resurrect a kind-of dead thread. But reading this really pulls me to post the thoughts I had for a while concerning color. Let me propose the following definition:

Color is detail of character, situation or setting that inspires.

It is not important if the detail matters in terms of system or if it is without systemic consequence. What matters is that it inspires play. The more color in a detail, the higher the chances that it will inspire a change of SIS in some way, even if the systen does not give the detail per se influence to character, setting or situation.

So Christoph, your character walking around with his head under his arm influenced play because that was a colorful detail (of character). If you had narrated him as just being dead without adding any color, that detail would have played out much less importance.

Similarly, by choosing the sextant you chose a colorful object which inspired the players to add more color and derive story elements from that.

Does that strike a chord with anybody or am I way off off how everyone else sees "color"?

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hello Lior

What you just said... I think that with such a definition as you propose I'd never have opened this thread in the first place. Of course, Colour inspires! While I might want to be more precise in the long run (but maybe not), this is really a good summary of what I've been trying to say, it captures all I described. I've been even formulating some of my ideas in French with this word, but didn't realize it was so central. Yeah... really simple in fact. Excellent, thanks for weighing in.

[Marshall Burns]

This thread touches on something I've been thinking about for a long time now, but it's been hard for me to follow, and the thing I've been thinking about is hard to articulate. But I've got an exercise:

1. Of the many things being described as Color in this thread, think about how many would actually be better described as a function of Situation or Character (usually Positioning, but sometimes Resource).

2. Having thought about that, think about the things you would still consider Color.

3. Having thought about that, think of a time when something that you considered just Color became, at one point, an element of Situation or Character. By what process did that transformation happen? What prompted that process to be employed?

4. Tell us about that time.

I'ma try to do this myself soon. Gimme time, though.

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hi Marshall

I'm confused: have I not done that exercise through the whole thread? If not, just tell me what's missing for you to understand and I'll try to help.

[Marshall Burns]

Sorry, I was vague

The answer is yes, mostly. But I'd like to see this stuff teased apart a bit more. For instance, I think it's worth pointing out explicitly that once it was established that the sextant was having an effect on the souls thing, it became a function of Situation -- specifically an element of Situation that the various characters would be Positioned relative to. And then describing, as clearly as possible, the process by which that was established. The process is clearly one of building through mutual consent, but, I mean, specifically, when did you realize the sextant's effect, and what prompted that realization? (As an example. There's no need to revisit the sextant if you'd rather pick out another example).

(Whug. That paragraph feels dense and tangled to me; is it comprehensible?)\

-Marshall

[Lior Wehrli]

Hi Christoph,

I think I was at the same place regarding Color as you were. If color was description that didn't matter, why even bother to mention it? After all, a lot of things happen at the table that don't matter: Joe goes to the toilet and Anna has a can of beer. We do not talk about that or describe that as color, so why talk about other things that do not matter? So I was inclined to just ignore the concept of color altogether.

But when I read your thread I noticed that the description in the examples you mentioned do matter a lot. And yet, they do not form an entity separate from character, setting and situation (from no on: CSS). So it should be discussed. But I do not think color should be in the group with CSS since its an orthogonal concept.


Hi Marshall,

Going through you exercise, I have to stop at step 2. I cannot think of an example of color which is not part of CSS. Can you? I am tempted to claim that inside the SIS everything is either character, setting or situation. Outside of SIS you have system, CA, techniques and so on. And those of course influence SIS very much. Now if color is a property of things inside SIS, then it can only be a property of CSS. For me the question is: Can color come from outside of SIS? I cannot think up an example for that.

Here is how I see it (at the moment, at least):

  CA  --System-->  SIS(Character <-> Situation <-> Setting)  --Inspiration--> CA    (imagine that as a loop)

So according with their CA the players use the system to manipulate the SIS. The SIS is divided into the three components CSS. There is a feedback from the SIS to the CA in the form of inspiration. One source of inspiration within SIS is color (another might be challenge?).

Now I think that is way outside the big model. Or at least well outside of my reading of the big model. What do you guys think?

Regards,

Lior

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hi Marshall

Okay, I see your point now. Give me some time to recollect my thoughts and answer your question properly.


Hi Lior

In the Big Model, the Shared Imagined Space can be described in the following "equation":

Colour * [ System * [ Situation = [ Character + Setting] ] ]

Colour is part of SIS and does indeed apply (or rather multiplies as Ron sometimes says), the four other elements. I agree that it makes no sense to talk of Colour that does not apply to one of those elements at least (Colour for System examples include: the poetic formulation of Key Phrases in Polaris, a particular choice of dice: I play Polaris with a translucent die that has runes engraved on it, etc.)
What you are designating as SIS is just part of it, namely Situation.
Colour does come from outside of the SIS, in a trivial sense that applies to the SIS in it's entirety. It's the people playing that produce it, it is not generated by the SIS itself in an autonomous perpetual motion cycle. This is why I like your notion of inspiration, because it invites the players to continue Exploring.

I don't think we need to figure in any CA for this discussion, what we're currently describing can happen even with no coherent CA at work (although arguably it'll be less fun or sustainable).

[JoyWriter]

How do you think the model, or any model, deals with something that goes from background color to the color of the experience itself? And how does that relate to giving an award?

Is there some fine insight to be gained? I could see the "poetic" end of the spectrum being a goal in itself, where the experience feels right to the player.

I've tried to come up with a set of examples from my experience to explain this, but I can't find any ones that are clear so I'll have to stick with hypothetical examples instead:

What are the birthday parties like in the human worlds of wh40k? They don't have them because THERE IS ONLY WAR!

In other words, setting the colour of a setting in broad strokes may limit the potential colour available in the game, and make it more monotone, whereas in contrast, the background before the game may not have a single clear tonal definition, but colour in play might be very important, in each of it's different forms.

Or the difference might be a shift between the broader tone and a local change from that, (the party above) if it is allowed to be different.

In this way the colour of a situation can be central, but totally different from the colour suggested by the background. It fits inside it fractal styley, and gives it nuances.

Another version of this is the subversion that can happen during a game, when a four-colour superhero game goes watchmen. I have this feeling that this kind of dramatic colour change is a consequence of a narr-like attitude to the background, and one of the places that this colour -> system thing becomes particularly important.

On the other side even if you have good background colour, it can be tricky to replicate it, as a friend of mine found doing starwars: Just knowing you have the same batch of characters and the same setting elements, somehow doesn't produce the same feel, if you don't know how to put them together right. Now actually doing that could be expanded into a whole other topic obviously, and a load of others will have more experience in doing that, but by putting the distinction between the background and the current situation, hopefully it shows up that skill is necessary to bridge that gap.

On the rest of the post, I'm not sure what you mean by awards, so I'll probably leave it there for now.

1. Of the many things being described as Color in this thread, think about how many would actually be better described as a function of Situation or Character (usually Positioning, but sometimes Resource).

Interesting, I sympathise with Lior's first paragraph, in that it occurs to me this might be like saying "if you bang your hand on a wooden table and it hurts, which is the cause, wood or table?" ie it occurs to me that not all distinct concepts can be distinguished by all interactions, so the question might not have any good answer!

But if I'm going to come up with a no-go like that, I'll need to back it up further: As I've come across these discussions I've found it helpful to see colour as something that overlaps with both of those, and comes from them; it's where I stick the symbolic stuff you get into with tessellation, magic as well as the indefinable gestalt stuff associated with design sensibilities and style, but focused on the situation currently being explored.
So I've got one of those whole/parts things going on with colour at the moment, and I'm happy to lay that aside and call what I've been talking about something else, but my impression is that it fits pretty well.

So I'd love to hear about positioning, and the extent to which it is embodied in specific situation elements, but I suspect that may be compatible with this stuff about colour, rather than negating it.

But who knows?

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hi Marshall

After reflection, I think that my points to Lior largely apply to my answer to you as well. Of course Colour does not exist on its own. I have no problem with the Provisional Glossary's part of the definition I gave in the initial post that says Colour is about "details about any or all of System, Character, Setting, or Situation".
In the case of the sextant, it moved from Colour applying to System to Colour applying to my Character to Colour applying to Situation and arguably to Setting. It was established first by choosing the sextant as our inspirational seed for the session, then I established it as part of my character by just saying it was, and then the other two players riffed off of that idea. The sextant's effect was left shady a good deal of the game (which was tactically sound for this contemplative game where it was all about exploring the possible implications). A number of issues could have been given to the session, but the episode was so ripe with possibilities and hints and innuendo that the proposed ending seemed totally credible to everybody.

Does that answer your question?

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya Chance,

How do you think the model, or any model, deals with something that goes from background color to the color of the experience itself? And how does that relate to giving an award?

Is there some fine insight to be gained? I could see the "poetic" end of the spectrum being a goal in itself, where the experience feels right to the player. Where does that fit?

In 2007 I wrote a blog article about color: http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/2007/05/what-is-color.html

I think that my distinction between Essential Color and Casual Color may be helpful to you.  My focus is more on design than play, there, so I imagine there may be parts that are not relevant to your inquiry about color.  If you read that article and you have some questions, I'll be more than pleased to answer them.

Peace,

-Troy

[FredGarber]

Is it possible that Color doesn't move to Situation/Setting/Character, but that the Situation/Setting/Character gains an attribute that is identical to the Color?
In less abstract terms, the sextant did not somehow transform from "not affecting play" to "affecting play".  Instead, the sextant described as Color was an inspiration for some player to add a sextant to the Setting, or add a sextant to a Character?

When the group was describing the lighthouse, I would like to assume other things were described and imagined..  There might have been a clock on the wall, a spyglass on a stand, a yellow raincoat, the lighthouse beacon (either bright or dark).  A seagull sitting on the railing.  Black rocks with the salt spray crashing against them.  All of these might have been Color elements.  However, one player picked up on the Sextant, and used it to affect the situation, or the character, or the setting.

They might have used some sort of formal System, like spending a resource coin or an action point.  But they might have used something more free-form, like just declaring "I pick up the sextant from the table," and no other player/authority said "What sextant?  I don't remember that.  Why is there a sextant lying around?  No." or some other sort of denial.

IMHO, this thread is skirting dangerously close to moving away from  "How do you incentivize appropriate additions from Color to the SiS?" and into "How do you encourage people to use their imagination to come up with cooler stuff?"  The first is something that you can discuss.  The second, in my opinion, is not (at least not before 3AM while sober)

-Fred

[Troy_Costisick]

Fred,

It's fairly clear that you have some fundamental misconceptions about the areas of Exploration.  But don't worry, people have had misunderstandings on this topic for many years.  Your sentence,

In less abstract terms, the sextant did not somehow transform from "not affecting play" to "affecting play".  Instead, the sextant described as Color was an inspiration for some player to add a sextant to the Setting...

shows that you don't quite grasp the idea yet.  I highly encourage you to pour over the Provisional Glossary entries on Exploration and its components, along with the links to Vincent's blog I am posting here before making further analysis on "Color."

http://indie-rpgs.com/_articles/glossary.html
http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=166
http://www.lumpley.com/comment?entry=73

Peace,

-Troy