Looking at the idea called 'system' again

[rgrassi]

IMVHO the word "system" as defined in the glossary generates a lot of misunderstanding.
In part because it's the only concept that takes the ownership to actually make the imagination come fictional truth.
Maybe, a better definition could be:
"System is whatever must occur between players in terms of explicit (written and not interpretable) or implicit (deduced by common sense or built-in in the human nature) game rules or social behaviours in order to agree to fictional events during play".
Rob

[Callan S.]

I think it needs to be defined as existing, based on something that is physically detectable. The original iterations of the lumpley principle rested on negotiation, which is fairly detectable at a physical level.

Otherwise you could say invisible fairies are at the table whispering in ones ears and influencing what goes into the SIS, thus invisible fairies are part of system!!!1! "But you can't prove they aren't there, and I say they are there, so they are part of system, it's exactly as the definition says etc etc" And in strict symantics, it is part of the definition.

That might sound over the top, but that's how the smelly chamberlain, or the idea I agreed to the GM's fiction on reloading, appear to me. Based on things that are invisible and while they can't be proven, they also can't be disproven. And the inability to disprove them is enough 'proof' for many to take them as being the case. Although in the latter case, immediately leaving the table might be enough to disprove the notion.

'whatever' isn't enough. It allows the invisible fairies a way in. Or to be more exact, superstition. Currently the LP is allowing just that.

[rgrassi]

I see your point and it looks right to me.
"System is anything that must occur and is physically detectable between players in terms of explicit (written and not interpretable) or implicit (deduced by common sense or built-in in the human nature) game rules or social behaviours in order to agree to fictional events during play".

That could open the flank to "sensism" counter-arguments, but I hope not.
Rob

[JoyWriter]

I honestly can't see you distinguishing between what you want to preserve and what you want to change (and by change I assume you mean remove). Even when you say you want to preserve awesome series of events, I can't honestly see you saying you would also remove things you thought morally iffy (and I mean even atleast by your own moral code, rather than by mine or some general one). You just talk about different dynamics, not right and wrong.

Bloody hell, it's good to talk, aye!

Even from an under-edited outburst of mine we still seem to be able to get somewhere.

I think you probably have been misreading me, but I'm not putting any fault in that, it's just miscommunication. The wonder of repeated conversation is that we can sort some of that stuff.

Also it might be helpful to contrast all of these robberies and things with an actually healthy situation; have you referred to anything in this thread that you would consider right? Playing lunch money, yeah?

But with Ron, that's the interesting part and what prompted me to post probably too quickly...
When I say 'that's the actual system that's happening' then I'm describing the system, at it's current point, between me and Ron.

The interesting thing is that if I am wrong on what he was doing, then there is no system between us. Or no single system - he'd be running off some pattern of doing things, I'd be running off another pattern of doing things. Given the wide use of system here, you could call that clash of patterns 'system', but then again you could call two cars smashing into each other, as it's happening, system, with that broad a notion of system.

In terms of being disruptive, if myself and Ron were actually two patterns crashing against each other at that point, I don't think I could get more disruptive than has already happened. And yet everyone wants to call that crashing 'system', with no moral distinguishment. So if you want to call me disruptive, as in something morally iffy, go ahead, but then equally you'd have to name the smelly chamberlain thread examples that too, rather than just calling them 'system' without caveat and without tone.

Now I'm going to see if I can take a stab at defusing this right here, here's hoping aye!

So you've got a clash of two patterns right, your idea of the world + way of doing things and Ron's? And you feel that is a reasonable analogy (ie has important similarities) to the problems in the actual game you played?

Now what is that clash? Is it that you just don't want to use the word system, which he has suggested people use? No obviously not, because you've felt quite happy to distinguish different forms of systems in this thread. You've been happy to define "darwinian systems" which might have positive or negative effects on people.

So what is the problem? Is it that people are saying what they think without saying "it is my opinion that it is my opinion that..." etc at the start? If so there's an easy solution, just mentally append any number of the above to the start of people's opinions when reading them. But I doubt that is the core cause of your concern.

So is it that you have a view of the world, and you feel you are being asked to swallow someone else's theory without question?

There is actually a surprising amount of familiarity between learning a theory you don't necessarally agree with and the sort of agreement that Caldis has been referring to; in the case of the game, you can predict how you think things will go, and then say:

"Hey, how'd the dragon breath fire on me? I'm standing way over here!?"
"No, your standing over there"
"If I'd known that I would have run way over here!"
"Well, your there and your burnt!"

So there are two ideas of what is going on in the imaginary world, yours and his. Now you can choose to keep your version of events to yourself, and go "Ok if he was right, how would it go?" (I'm using quote marks there because we don't have thought marks in our language!). This hypothetical "if he was right" thing is one very impoverished version of what the Shared Imaginary Space is about, it's like "for the sake of argument I'll go with that and build off it as if it was right".

Now to illustrate that I'll go with a more give-and-take based example. Say the GM instead says

"Oh ok, in that case the dragon steps forward and breaths fire on you, you're burnt"

what makes the difference between those two examples? In the first case it's the golden rule "GM decides everything, if there is a disagreement his way goes", in the second case, the GM could be adding a rule by adjusting his own behaviour, deciding "but the GM will defer to players decisions within these parameters ........" in some inexplicit/unexact way.
That is the system people have been referring to. There's no silly stuff about telling you that all along you thought something different to what you do, that somehow the fact that you sat down to a game (or started discussing a theory with them) means they know the insider of your head better than you, instead they just want you to go along with something, and they will sometimes also go along with you (if they are willing to do give and take).

That is the kind of agreement people are talking about. (in my opinion in my opinion etc)

Now this is different to a car crash, it's not people going "whatever, your thing is nonsense" it's "what if your thing was true, what would it mean"?

You can go back to the start of this thread and see me suggesting that you provide an alternative, a way of looking at games so people can "pretend your view is true". Until then, there's no possibility of shared understanding, it's just "I don't think the same as you, maybe your wrong". Perhaps we're all wrong, but if you provide an alternative view then people can decide to try yours out, hypothetically, and compare it to their own one. Your starting to do this, which is great, but it's still board games or card games, not your own explanation of actual rpg sessions.

To get really practical, I'll now split to focus on the example you gave near the start about ammo and stuff, and then on us talking now (how self-referential!)

But ultimately I'll put it this way - if I knew someone else was going to be absolutely certain I'm agreeing with their fiction when I'm not and I'm actually telling them I don't agree? I don't want to give that impression - so I'd pack up and leave. That simple.

Is that what you did, in that game? Did you declare that you disagreed? And the game carried on anyway? And you didn't pack up and leave?

Did you start going "well if that is how reloading works, I'd have to do this"? That's what people are referring to, an agreement to build on something as if it was what actually happened. You might call it tolerating, and make a moral distinction between the two. But if so, what you call "tolerating", other people have included as part of "agreement". That's all, no confusion, just disagreement. What people maybe haven't seen though, is that you tolerated something you really didn't like. Why? You'd have to answer that. (if I'm right that I'm right that .....)

Now I thought I'd go onto referring to our conversation now but this is maybe already too weighty a post!

[Callan S.]

I see your point and it looks right to me.
"System is anything that must occur and is physically detectable between players in terms of explicit (written and not interpretable) or implicit (deduced by common sense or built-in in the human nature) game rules or social behaviours in order to agree to fictional events during play".

That could open the flank to "sensism" counter-arguments, but I hope not.
Rob

Hmmm, the thing about the implicit rules is that if you can physically detect them and the same rules are being used over and over with no new ones showing up, they are the same as explicit rules. As in they could all be written down and non interpretable, anyway. And the ones which seem to make more and more new rules coming from something unknown - well, that's a non physically detectable set of rules, since it's all originating from something you can't detect. It's like if the GM can give a bonus ranging from +1 to +4 to swing on a rope, that's physically detectable system. But how he decides what bonus, that's undetectable at a physical level (because if it became detectable, it would always be 'Well, if you do X you get +3' as a rule - and due to human whim and a lack of scary MRI technology, you cannot physically detect how he determines it).

From my observations, most implicit stuff falls into the latter, and thus can't be called system (with a defintion that requires physically detectable process), or it's detectable and may as well not be called implicit. So I dunno - that defintion seems clunky, yet I'd grant it works to a degree (kind of missinterpretable at the mo, imo).

I really appreciate that you looked at the physically detectable idea up close, thanks

[Callan S.]

Hi Josh,

Also it might be helpful to contrast all of these robberies and things with an actually healthy situation; have you referred to anything in this thread that you would consider right?

I think this would just change the topic. After all, that I think something is right, or that I even consider if something is right, is not, as far as I can tell, any reason for anyone else to. And if I talk about what I think is right, that'll get pointed out to me. Instead I'm just nakedly trying to prompt moral reflection (or find if it's there and I missed it) simply on the basis of do unto others and all that shit.

Now I'm going to see if I can take a stab at defusing this right here, here's hoping aye!

Well, no, I was trying to draw out the spark of moral outrage I thought I detected from you for a moment in terms of our mutual patterns perhaps clashing. Rather than get into describing it all as if it's part of normal, everyday life...which you then went on to do and ask me what the problem is.

The problem is that yourself and many others don't seem to have a problem with this stuff, or more exactly, show any reflection on whether something is a problem or not for yourself.

It reminds me of the T&T account Ron gave once where the players brought up the idea of buying a slave to take the hit from a bad curse a player was under. IIRC Ron was appaled, but the players were just in optimisation mode, no reflection on the morality of their actions (I am not critiquing that game, BTW). In terms of discussing 'system' here, all I'm seeing is optimising people, with no real moral level brought to the fore at all.

I'm seriously wondering if, like a computer memory leak, there's a morality leak here. Like, for example, it's okay for the T&T characters to do that...but what if a game has some sort of leak, where it goes from it being okay for characters to skip morals, to it being okay to spoof the GM and ignore rules you promised him you'd agree to? Somehow the sense of 'Oh, it's just a game' has slipped out of it's pen?

You can go back to the start of this thread and see me suggesting that you provide an alternative, a way of looking at games so people can "pretend your view is true". Until then, there's no possibility of shared understanding, it's just "I don't think the same as you, maybe your wrong". Perhaps we're all wrong, but if you provide an alternative view then people can decide to try yours out, hypothetically, and compare it to their own one. Your starting to do this, which is great, but it's still board games or card games, not your own explanation of actual rpg sessions.

Well, you seem to be insisting on absolute shared understanding, rather than shared understanding on following procedure and a possible absence of shared understanding in terms of fiction.

If you have to have both constantly, well, recognise that as your own need, rather than something that has to happen somehow. I've 'survived' many a boardgame without any fictional understanding - 'surviving' a lack of fiction understanding in an RPG is more of the same. Not to mention, Ralph Mazza, essentially a specialist in the simulationism field, put it: In my view 80+% of every RPG ever played by anyone actually occurs in the Unshared Imagined Space of each individual player.

I dunno, is everyone this way, needing absolute understanding on both rules AND fiction, at all times? I don't. And I've been talking as if to people who don't have to (they can want to have both, but don't have to). Bad assumption on my part?

Is that what you did, in that game? Did you declare that you disagreed? And the game carried on anyway? And you didn't pack up and leave?

Man, that's just lazy reading! IF I knew...I did not. C'mon!

Did you start going "well if that is how reloading works, I'd have to do this"? That's what people are referring to, an agreement to build on something as if it was what actually happened. You might call it tolerating, and make a moral distinction between the two. But if so, what you call "tolerating", other people have included as part of "agreement". That's all, no confusion, just disagreement.

I call that delusion - it isn't disagreement, because as you say in your example they think I totally agree with them. Someone isn't disagreeing with you when they are certain you agree with them but you don't. They are just deluded.

Anyway, it's wreckage - time to go sort of thing. Like if a chick tells herself you love her when you don't, it's time to leave rather than leave her like that. Though I totally grant some guys hang around in that circumstance and fuck such chicks for extended times. Lets call that a 'system' or 'relationship', eh? No, I'd rather not. But people seem to be doing that in regards to gaming.

What people maybe haven't seen though, is that you tolerated something you really didn't like. Why? You'd have to answer that. (if I'm right that I'm right that .....)

I don't actually have an issue with fractured fictions. Other peoples imaginations work in weird ways that mine doesn't. This happens in movies or books all the time - there's some fiction that just doesn't jive with me and I ignore it and just go with my own fiction till they jive again. No one else does this?

[Caldis]

Those personal views of the fiction are pretty much irrelevant.  Role playing is a form of social interaction where people are sharing their imagination.  When we look at game play we are looking at what was shared because that is out in the open.  What's going on inside the contributors mind, exactly how they see it, doesnt matter because we cant know that.  What we can know as a contributor or as an outside party watching is what was shared, what was communicated between the individuals what was seen to happen.   In your example a situation developed and combat broke out, you tried to have your character reload and fire in the same round in the same manner as the other characters had aimed and fired in the same round.   You proposed that he should be able to do so, the gm interpreted the rules against your intended action, play continued.  That was the system in action.

[Callan S.]

Caldis, that's slipping into 'Roleplay IS...' territory. It is not. It's just your own personal preference expressed. With some things you can say what it is, like 'fire is hot' or 'water is wet' and it's genuinely how things are. But those things physically exist - while roleplay is just an idea. As such it is not a case of what it 'IS' but what the idea can be, between us, if we both agree.

If you don't take that to be case and don't even humour any doubt as to being wrong on that (just humouring...even scientists humour the idea that the theory of evolution could be wrong), all I can do in terms of conversation is walk away. Because you'll just be taking my continued presence as some sort of support for this perception of yours.

[Callan S.]

Just to tie that in more, it's very easy to be right on a subject if you can keep inventing facts on what that subject 'IS' and that subject is A: Something that doesn't physically exist (it's a name for an invented activity, it's not a name for a physical object, like water), so there can be no physical test to disprove it and B: You have decided you don't need the other guys agreement on what it is. You could be telling me what sort of hats the invisible fairies wear - I really have no way of disproving which hat they wear (and indeed, whether they exist) and in doing so it's not asking for my agreement to what hat they wear, it's just telling me.

Or I'll pitch it the other way around - there are invisible fairies, that you can't see or feel. They are part of the process and they are why you are wrong. And they definately exist. I'm telling you, not asking.

In do unto others terms, not something you want argued to you, not something you want to argue onto others.

[JoyWriter]

Also it might be helpful to contrast all of these robberies and things with an actually healthy situation; have you referred to anything in this thread that you would consider right?

I think this would just change the topic. After all, that I think something is right, or that I even consider if something is right, is not, as far as I can tell, any reason for anyone else to. And if I talk about what I think is right, that'll get pointed out to me. Instead I'm just nakedly trying to prompt moral reflection (or find if it's there and I missed it) simply on the basis of do unto others and all that shit.

Rabbi Hillel said "That which you dislike, don't do to your fellow", Jesus said "Do to others as you would have them do to you". I take from that difference the idea that morality can be phrased in negative and positive senses, focusing on the harmonious ideal or on damage, and I prefer to focus on what I should be doing. There's some psychology that has been done that suggests people respond better to that, but there's probably advantages in both. So when I see people making moral judgements, setting up limits, I wonder if they have found a way through the maze themselves, if they have found the positive to complete the negative (similar to my previous comments about combining game rules with explanations of the designers core intent). That's what I was wondering about there.

I'm one of those crazy people who is actually happy when he meets someone who totally disagrees with him, because it means I may have an opportunity to see a new way of looking at the world. In my experience a clash of perspectives can go well or badly, depending on the behaviour of the participants.

Now something I'm not sure you caught in my last post, was the idea that rather than forcing you to change your mind, someone might ask you to entertain the concept that they are correct, as you have done at the start of this thread, but also ask the person who disagrees with them to go "if then, what...." and build off it. This kind of thing is sometimes called a domain of discourse, and I think in some ways it forms a good metaphor for SIS.

Perhaps we're all wrong, but if you provide an alternative view then people can decide to try yours out, hypothetically, and compare it to their own one. Your starting to do this, which is great, but it's still board games or card games, not your own explanation of actual rpg sessions.

Well, you seem to be insisting on absolute shared understanding, rather than shared understanding on following procedure and a possible absence of shared understanding in terms of fiction.

Bang, you just did it! That was exactly what I was referring to, jumping from "it reminds me of this" to "I think it's like this". It may seem a tiny distinction to you, but it can give other people (like me) a lot more to get hold of when talking to you. If this is an accurate description of how you play (agreement to procedure before everything else), and how you want to play wheras the former is not, then we can make a big distinction between why and how you play and why and how other people (like Vincent) play.

I'm guessing also that you might say that the most important "step on up" reward in these games is mastery of that procedure? At least for you?

What people maybe haven't seen though, is that you tolerated something you really didn't like. Why? You'd have to answer that. (if I'm right that I'm right that .....)

I don't actually have an issue with fractured fictions. Other peoples imaginations work in weird ways that mine doesn't.

Fair do's. What was the problem then? I thought based on this:

However, when it came to reloading, latter in the same game, no, you had to use an attack and do nothing for a turn. I tried to present this apparent conflict, but he literally said something like 'Aww, come on, you can't just reload and shoot all at once'...despite the fact that apparently people were carefully aiming for some time, yet shooting instantly and somehow that aiming time happened after the shot (was taken off the number of attacks).

That your problem actually was that his idea differed from yours, it differed from yours in that it was inconsistent, when interpreted as relating to the same fictional world. My guess is that you like to be on the same fictional page for predictive reasons; it allows you to plan ahead within the game without having all of the rules in front of you, it acts as a way of inferring other rules by analogy, but that's just a guess naturally! But I'd also guess that although that is mostly your reason for disliking those dissonances, you also have a little bit of that enjoyment of suspension of disbelief that makes these things wrong simply because they don't fit your expectation, they jar, rather than for any reason associated with competition or shifting goalposts.

Then presumably after that the other "delusion" problem manifested itself? Or is that where I misunderstood you? Were you referring to the original example game with your comment about delusion?

I probably misunderstood you, I certainly didn't mean to read lazily (incidentally that's one of the things that really does piss me off! It's somehow easier to be angry about little things...).

At this point I thought of the golden rule, how it'd eventually get invoked no doubt, and ceased bothering to discuss it and just went with it (and chalked up yet another dumb and uninteresting point against the golden rule).

This is what I think most people would be talking about when they talk about lumpley principle style agreement in a game, not that you overwrite your own personal view of the situation, that you fork it and work off the public build. Where I think you may have made a powerful insight is that people can follow the system and "agree" in that sense, despite having persistent misgivings that may not be dealt with. In other words "agreement" or "sufficient tolerance" can be reached that is sufficient for play to continue but not for actual satisfaction of the participants, and that something extra that you want from a game might be different from what other designers here want and insure they preserve.

I dunno, is everyone this way, needing absolute understanding on both rules AND fiction, at all times?

I think that need is probably the hunger of a connoisseur; technically your hungry for any old thing, but what you're really after is some lovely chinesy stir-fry! That focus is so much part of the core of why they play that going without it is a bit tasteless in comparison.

[Callan S.]

Bang, you just did it! That was exactly what I was referring to, jumping from "it reminds me of this" to "I think it's like this". It may seem a tiny distinction to you, but it can give other people (like me) a lot more to get hold of when talking to you. If this is an accurate description of how you play (agreement to procedure before everything else), and how you want to play wheras the former is not, then we can make a big distinction between why and how you play and why and how other people (like Vincent) play.

I assure you I've been making this distinction since the begining...not that it matters really, unless any further arguement is based on the idea I made the distinction only just now.

The things is, I keep making the distinction and then people seem to read me to mean absolute understanding ... even though I'm sure everyone has played dozens of board game sessions where they formed no fictional understanding with the other players and only had a procedural understanding, and yet nothing caught on fire and no blood was shed or any other terrible thing, I'm sure. But when it comes to a roleplay example, there almost seems to be a howl that I simply must have agreed with the fiction. As if it couldn't work the same as the board game sessions from their own personal history!?

I appreciate you saying "we can make a big distinction between why and how you play and why and how other people (like Vincent) play.", but given the common, absolute resistance to thinking of play defaulting, even for a brief time, to boardgame like play, I think the question is more like 'Why are people so damn dedicated to always having an intact fictional understanding?'. In terms of your last question, this focus seems almost bigger than GNS...or perhaps it's why S exists at all. I will say in terms of gamism, I play for esteem...keep in mind that if you play for esteem, esteem doesn't vanish if the fictional understanding falls apart. I think narrativism is similar - the fun thing about nar doesn't vanish if the fiction falls apart for a bit. It's only sim where it's absolutely fucking vital the fictional understanding continues on (which is probably why I'm not really attracted to sim).

That your problem actually was that his idea differed from yours, it differed from yours in that it was inconsistent, when interpreted as relating to the same fictional world.

I don't understand...why would I have a problem? We just work differently. It's like if he had black skin and I had white skin...we have different skin. I don't have to have a problem with the other guys skin to note there's a difference between our skins. And in terms of imagination, he imagines black (so to speak) and I imagine white. We don't agree/we don't match. It's that easy. I don't need to have a problem with it to accept we don't match/don't agree.

My example was to show we didn't agree. Just that - like I might point out our mutually non matching skin colours. It wasn't demonstrating any problem with it...I don't need everyone to imagine my way.

Years ago I had some posts here on pushing a vase off a balcony 'in game' and it falling several stories onto concrete. A large number of people had real issues, IIRC, with imagining it not breaking - they really needed everyone to imagine it breaking. They needed everyone to imagine it the same way they did.

Other than that, I don't know what else to add?

This is what I think most people would be talking about when they talk about lumpley principle style agreement in a game, not that you overwrite your own personal view of the situation, that you fork it and work off the public build. Where I think you may have made a powerful insight is that people can follow the system and "agree" in that sense, despite having persistent misgivings that may not be dealt with. In other words "agreement" or "sufficient tolerance" can be reached that is sufficient for play to continue but not for actual satisfaction of the participants, and that something extra that you want from a game might be different from what other designers here want and insure they preserve.

You might not agree, but I don't think your into esteem enough to see it as the reason for play. Okay, imagine this, there is free booze at gaming night (HAZAH!). You come for the free booze. Now at some point the fiction breaks down...but the free booze keeps on coming. So it's no biggie, your getting what you came for, so fuck who cares if the fiction broke down, pass me another coldie! That's how esteem works in gamism - you come for the esteem the same way. But when I talk about it here, everyone keeps assuming I'm there for the fiction first and foremost and the beers just something unimportant on the side.

When the booze keeps coming, it's not 'tolerance', even. It's actually just not giving a shit.

Now, what I'm thinking is, and Caldis makes me think this, is that people here might like to think that everyone at their gaming table is agreeing and enjoy that feeling. And to accept what I'm saying would mean to lessen their certainty everyone is agreeing at the table - which would spoil what they get at the gaming table. So basically people have understanding and yet spoilt gaming in one hand, and in the other hand ignoring what I say and continue with their fun.

Eh, that sounds awkward. What I'm trying to do is preserve your notions that if someone stays at the table they must have agreed, by saying if I know that's the case for a game I wouldn't turn up to that game. I don't want to spoil peoples notion that if people stay at the table everyones agreeing to some fabulously solid fiction. But lets say you could have a different game to that, where people know that staying at the table can just mean agreement with procedure and no fictional understanding. That's a different set up you can have. Would everyone accept that is possible, even if you'd do it only once hell had frozen over?

Is that diplomatic enough? I'm not Ron, I don't really do the 'ease in'.

[Caldis]

The problem with your multiple visions of the fiction approach is that it has the potential to ruin causality.  You need to be able to create a sequence of events in a game.   That's not always possible if different people are seeing things differently.  I accept that people have different views of the fiction and I dont believe it's possible to always be on the same page, nor does it matter in a lot of cases if they do differ,  but at a certain point you may have to resolve those differences and how you do that is part of system.

Take your example of the falling bottle.  In most situations it doesnt matter if the bottle breaks or not so it's fine if people have different views on whether it breaks or not.  Now what if we change the situation and there is a Genie trapped in the bottle who cant escape while the bottle is intact.  If in the game the bottle falls off the ledge we then all have to know what happens.  Half the group cant believe the bottle remains intact while the other member believe it broke.  If the Genie comes out once the bottle is broken then unless everyone agrees the bottle broke the game cant continue.  The question has to be resolved and it may involve going back to retcon the situation to resolve peoples differing views of the fiction.  Whether or not you allow going back to change the situation is also part of system.

Likewise in your example with the reloading rifle.  Your vision of the fiction may be that your character did fire his gun at the same time as the others who had aimed and that they just didnt allow you to roll the dice at this time.  If in the interim your character is shot and killed by an enemy he may have been able to shoot and kill had they allowed you to attack at the same time as the rest the fiction in your head is irrelevant, you cant claim that your character is not dead and use that as a justification.  The system has already determined that you didnt get to shoot.  Basic cause and effect brought about by system.

[Callan S.]

The problem with your multiple visions of the fiction approach is that it has the potential to ruin causality.  You need to be able to create a sequence of events in a game.

No you don't need it (Want? Probably. Need? No). You've got this idea you need to be able to create a sequence of fictional events and then all your other arguements flow on from this assumption that you really need to. And this assumption is not true.

I'm guessing that your assumption was fostered by traditional roleplay games, where there was basically no written procedure on what to do next, at the gaming table, at any given point. And your so used to using fiction as some sort of way of determining what to do next at the gaming table, you can't actually see any other way, anymore. Even though I'm sure you could go off and play a boardgame with it's fully written out procedure, just fine.

Let's say there was an RPG with just three actions - climbing, jumping and talking. This is how your thinking - you don't know which to roll next at the gaming table, if any at all, unless you have a chain of fictional causality to tell you which to roll for. Essentially in how your thinking, if the fictional causality isn't intact, you don't know what to roll and since you don't, play has literally ground to a halt, since in the way your thinking, you can't roll anything because you have no idea what to roll (until your fiction becomes intact again).

Now lets drop the emotionally charged acronym 'RPG' and say we have a procedure. It has three entries; climbing, jumping and talking. Which one you roll for is determined by rolling 1D3. The procedure after that? Roll 1D3. After that? 1D3. Continue until you get bored of it.

Can you continue play, boring as it might be, in the latter example without any fictional causality? I'm hoping we both say 'Absolutely'. If not, I'm absolutely flabbergasted, as it's as followable as chess (if not nearly as interesting).

Are we both saying 'Absolutely'?

[Caldis]

I'm sorry you've lost me in hypothetical nonsense again.

If you are trying to say it's possible to play purely proceedural with no reference to fiction please relate an actual play where this happened.  Or develop a game that does so, play it and come back with play examples.  I dont see how this relates to the topic though.  What you propose is a game where the rules match system it doesnt change how system works in all other games or the concept of system.  In the game you actually played system included the 'golden rule' as you put it, in that example the gm overuled your view of the fiction.   It really is that simple and I dont understand why you are trying to complicate it.

[Callan S.]

Do you have some physically measurable quality in mind that would prove it's the case, Caldis? If not, take it elsewhere and be productive in another thread - I've provided an example, your denying it not based on anything physically measurable, just your own willfull assertion. I had thought my own word for what I have agreed with would be enough. Apparently not. Okay, so describe a physically measurable quality that, if the activity measures up to it, proves play entered into procedure only. Or go away and be productive elsewhere. I might have seemed to be humouring willful assertions - I'll prove I'm not by asking here for a physically measurable test, or go and work on some other threads other than this one.