Here's the theory :

When two friends sit down at a chess board and decide to express their creativity and explore their cunning by playing a game of chess, each one of them is interacting with the notional structure of "chess". They are engaging together in an act of vision of interaction through interacting with those rules. (As Wittgenstein and others have pointed out, "chess" does not exist outside its structuration within a set of pre-existing rules.)

When two friends sit down at a chess board and decide to explore their cunning and express their creativity by improvising a new game using those wooden chess pieces, one with no direct link to any other game, both individually and corporately they are acting relatively independently of any pre-existing notional structure. They are engaging together in an act of vision of independence of an a priori structure. In terms of social contract and social commitment, they are relating interactively with each, and in terms of physical and tactile use of the chess pieces, they are relating physically interactively with the king and queen and knight et al., but in terms of the structure (or in terms of notional instrumentality if you prefer psychological language) they are relating relatively independently of a pre-existing structure, in this case the structure of chess.

In the same way, when I read a series of haikus and decide that I would like to write the American variant of a haiku -- three lines, first and third of exactly five syllables no more no less, middle line of seven syllables no more no less -- I pull out my pen and sit down and express my creativity in one of two probable ways. If I write within those haiku restrictions, I am interacting with the structure of haiku within a vision of interaction, whether successfully or not. If I decide to ignore those haiku rules and write free verse, I am writing independently of a pre-existing structuring in a basic vision of independence. Of course, there is seldom pure independence of any structure -- I'm using language, I'm considering cadence and euphony among other things -- but in terms of my relationship with a pre-existing structure, I am relatively independent.

One could always insist that there is no such thing as pure independence of other structural notions, but that really only accomplishes a straw man argument. Extremes are important only as tools to establish the boundaries or parameters of a spectrum, and both vision of interaction and vision of independence are the parameters of a spectrum. No one can act within a symbol system such as language or mathematics or gaming completely independently of any other notions -- but there are degrees of interaction with those pre-existing notions and degrees of independence from those pre-existing notions. Again, ignoring or overemphasizing this results only in straw man arguments.

Ferdinand Saussure noted that structure and variation from structure interrelate in language as one of the primary forces in the changing of language (e.g. from Old English to Middle English). He noted that most speakers of a language defer overall to a known set of "official" rules (such as proper grammar) but that almost no one uses those rules as they are all the time. Eventually, if commonly held, those changes become incorporated into the "official" rules. The rules function as a grounding from which creative communication springs, not as a straitjacket nor as shackles. The creative communication in turn eventually modifies those rules.

In the example of chess given above, both vision of interaction and a lowlevel vision of independence have resulted in a fine body of chess variants. Are these variants chess? Yes. Are they the official or "center zero" form of chess? No. Does that make them any less legitimate? No. Does that make their players any more mature or more creative than those who play the standard form of chess? No.

Now, in a game mastered RPG, when a troupe encounters a cottage in the middle of the woods, the players may have no idea whether that cottage was drawn on a G.M.'s map three days before campaign's start or definitively placed there in a module by the game system's creator or ad-libbed on the spot because the game master was bored or thought it would amuse her or his players. However, whether or not that cottage pre-existed is not the relevant concern in the notion of visions of interaction and visions of independence. The concern is whether the individual members of the troupe began the campaign and begin each game session with a sense that there is a set, determined, pre-existing stage as a grounding for their acts of cunning and expressions of creativity. To return to the chess metaphor: to what degree does each player begin this game knowing that rooks move horizontally and vertically and bishops move diagonally, and to what degree does each player begin this game knowing that both friendly pawns and hostile pawns may manifest new functions at any given time if the troupe as a whole okays those new manifestations?

How much of the grounding can be thought about and dreamt about and played with in a player's mind before and between games (because said grounding is stable and set), and how much of the grounding will exist only during the gaming itself? Again, this is a question of degrees, not an either/or binary.

A simple example for RPGs is genre structuring.

Many -- but not all! -- RPGs expect a high degree of interactive fidelity to the genre. So each player in a fantasy game strictly based off The Professor's Lord of the Rings can assume that both he or she and the other players and the game master if there is one will anticipate encounters and tropes with a vision of interaction with that genre. If a new player decides that he will run a superhero from the planet Krypton or that she will run a sharpshooting cowpoke with thick Texas drawl, in most games the other players will object -- that player has chosen to construct a player-character independently from the chosen genre rather than interactively within the chosen genre. Similarly, many players in such a game would be annoyed with the game master if he or she suddenly faced the players with a squad of "Battlestar: Galactica" cylons. Their frustration would not come from violation of social contract -- their frustration would come from violation of the social contract about degree of interaction within genre and degree of independence from genre!

On the other hand, I have seen groups have great fun with anything-goes no-holds-barred AD-&-D campaigns in which a Kzinti and a White Gold wielder and an anime' super-ninja and a Clint Eastwood homage work together in a rollicking campaign which might involve stopping Thulsa Doom one day and stealing the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West another day and assaulting the Deathstar a third. This gaming group enjoys a far greater degree of vision of independence from genre structure.

Variations on a theme are only possible if there is a pre-existing stable theme off which one may vary -- a theme with which the creative individual might interact. Hence the importance of vision of interaction for creativity.

Variations on a theme are only possible if there may be variations from this pre-existing stable theme -- a level of independence from that theme so far as the creative individual is concerned. Hence the importance of vision of independence for creativity.

In an RPG, just as in any group creative endeavor, things can go very wrong if different members have different visions of the degree of interaction with structure and degree of independence from structure, regardless of whether that structure is genre, theme, de facto or de jure rules, etc. Recognition of vision of interaction approaches and vision of independence approaches to the various notional structures within RPGs can be both useful in a practical sense and fascinating in an intellectual sense.

Someone listed a number of fine scholars for this sort of concept, but I can not find that posting right now. So I will list some scholars for those who are interested in such topics, and I apologize if I replicate some of her or his list. These are just a few of the scholars whose work deals in part with the degree of interaction with and degree of independence from notional structures (including language, culture, games, vows, sense of self, social identity, gender, race, ethicality, morality, meaningfulness, etc.) :

Ferdinand Saussure originated the twin fields of semiotics and semiology with his recognition of the division between language and the reality which language represents and which language is often mistaken for
Claude Levi-Strauss linked this with anthropological theories
Jacques Lacan linked this with psychological theories of ontology and cognitive social development
Ludwig Wittgenstein recognized the dependence of notional "things" (such as chess and society) upon pre-existing structure
John L. Austin and John R. Searle explored the different meanings inherent within sentences, how one recognizes said meanings (or fails to), and the performative sentence -- a sentence which is true only through the act of saying it, such as a vow
Erving Goffman explicated the degree to which people are judged more for the appearance of their behavior than for the actuality of their behavior
Judith Butler applied the ideas of the above scholars to social structures and the axes of social structures, such as the axis of gender, the axis of class, etc.
Michel Foucault detailed the influence of awareness of external power structures on the internal functionings or behavioral functionings of individuals
James J. Gibson recognize the biological basis for finding meaningfulness within one's environment, which he called affinity
David C. Rubin brings together the various cognitive theories on the importance of narrative structure to the sense of self (I can't off the top of my head recall the names of the theorists)

(EDIT: the other theorists are on http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10283&start=0)

Midterm season has begun at the university, so odds are that I will have far less free time for perusing The Forge and contributing to its various threads. I have almost finished another game to submit to The Forge; I will be lucky if I have time for more than that and this particular thread here.

I will be focusing most of my VoIND and VoINT discussion in this thread only; let's use this thread to explore its relevance and applications and consider possible flaws and holes as well. If you consider the VoIND and VoINT theoretical perspective merely a waste of bandwidth or despise the terminology, there's a fine thread on just those concerns at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10253 which you might enjoy participating in. I apologize to the fine people contributing to that thread and its siblings that I no longer have the time to address their insights and defend my terminology, scholarship, and/or theory right now; however, I appreciate how their thoughts have kept me on my toes.

Good luck to all. I look forward to reading insights on this thread.

Doctor Xero

Is this something I might post an article on?

Ok, since this is not my area of expertise, I'm probably wrong and am misunderstanding your point. I suggest you consider the following merely as points where clarification might be necessary.

I get the impression you're conflation a bunch of notions which are actually independent from each other.*
- (1) One thing is the assignment of credibility, what is referred to as stances over here AFAIK. Giving the player editing power e.g. as far as the setting is concerned may or may not mean, that they have to stick to genre expectations (3) or that there has to be continuity (2).
It seems wholly irrelevant to me, whether the sum of expectations of other players come from previous agreement among players, or previous agreement to adhere to a published setting or to one, which another player has conceived.
- (2) Next you seem to refer to a notion of continuity in the setting, though this is again unrelated to the other stuff, since a GM could as easily choose to turn the whole world upside down at every session as a player could (1) and in both cases the changes can stay within a genre or go beyond (3).
- (3) Finally, fidelity to a certain genre is again entirely unrelated to the question of who is given authority to introduce new elements into the setting (1). Genres may or may not be have the continuity mentioned under (2).

So, from where I'm standing, it seems like you're trying to roll independent aspects (which may nonetheless correlate) into one big thing, mistaking correlation for causal connections.
Besides, the current usage seems at odds with the previous one you used here, in that it is more vague and at least I have more trouble discerning the two visions.

On second thought, maybe I'm approaching this the wrong way, by looking for a theory of play, when you actually want to create a somewhat psychological theory of the perception of play. To quote from JohnKim's essay "They are not goals or techniques, but rather different understandings for what RPGs are in narrative terms."
However, if that is the goal, I'd suggest abandoning the one-dimensional (bipolar) approach which IMHO is useless and working from various classifications of player types.

*Apologies to anyone else for misuse of Forge terminology, don't hesitate to correct me on that as well

montag wrote: On second thought, maybe I'm approaching this the wrong way, by looking for a theory of play, when you actually want to create a somewhat psychological theory of the perception of play. To quote from JohnKim's essay "They are not goals or techniques, but rather different understandings for what RPGs are in narrative terms." However, if that is the goal, I'd suggest abandoning the one-dimensional (bipolar) approach which IMHO is useless and working from various classifications of player types.

montag wrote: I'd suggest abandoning the one-dimensional (bipolar) approach

Doctor Xero wrote: Extremes are important only as tools to establish the boundaries or parameters of a spectrum, and both vision of interaction and vision of independence are the parameters of a spectrum. ---snip!-- Again, ignoring or overemphasizing this results only in straw man arguments.

montag wrote: On second thought, maybe I'm approaching this the wrong way, by looking for a theory of play, when you actually want to create a somewhat psychological theory of the perception of play.

John Kim wrote: what he is talking about is relation of the RPG play to larger narrative structures: like genre, or background, or structure.

Doctor Xero wrote:

montag wrote: I'd suggest abandoning the one-dimensional (bipolar) approach

Doctor Xero wrote: Extremes are important only as tools to establish the boundaries or parameters of a spectrum, and both vision of interaction and vision of independence are the parameters of a spectrum. ---snip!-- Again, ignoring or overemphasizing this results only in straw man arguments.

As I've written repeatedly, Montag, VoINT and VoIND are the ends of a spectrum. How a spectrum could be construed as bipolar is beyond me.

Invention within an RPG is not without it's rules, which must be interacted with.

Hmmm...

I haven't had a chance to read all of the related threads, but I've got a quick question.

Are you basically saying that, in their purest forms, vision of interaction statements are entirely reasoned from existing statements (deduction/induction/abduction), and vision of independence statements are entirely created (additional data injected into the conversation independent of any statements already made)?

(Given that the purest cases are just theoretical constructs, and cannot actually existent. Which, you don't seem to be in disagreement with. Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Hi Doc Xero,

Good to see this thread - I think it makes the issues you are interested in more clear. I think much discussion here at the Forge actually makes an end run around the issues you are pointing at - whether that's good or bad is probably a matter of opinion. But for what it's worth, maybe I can express my understanding by working off a quote from your post above:

If a cabin appears, and players use suspension of disbelief to think of it as having always existed there, they are engaging in an illusion of diachronic reality (to use a Forge term apropos sustained suspension of disbelief). If a cabin appears, and players know they summoned it into existence, there is no such illusion.

DoctorXero:

Just quickly, before i risk missing vital calls...

As far as I can tell, the distinction arises due to treating the existing / agreed elements as a semiotic text with which the players are seen as either interacting with or acting independently to. I think in order to properly grok this, I'm going to have to find out what these guys say about creation of texts, as I'm still getting the impression that a great deal of their work that I've encountered before is concerned with the reading of texts, and the creation of intertexts to facilitate interaction with the text by a reader.

Basically, you're telling me what the blind men are saying about the elephant's trunk, when I've only heard them talk about the tail before ;)

Would a case study in looking at the structure of a particular game, and how it relates to VoInd and VoInt help? I think, specifically, Universalis would be a fine test case, since it lays bare the creation of the text for interaction explicitly at the outset, while explicitly allowing reference to a pre-written text (tenet: we will be using the published text of the Forgotten Realms campaign as canon for all world, NPC, etc information).

I think the previous assumption folk made about you priveliging VoInt over VoInd came from unrelated comments you made about your preferred play style and the bad experiences you've had with abuse of VoInd for dysfunctional play: also, to an extent, I was projecting my percieved prejudice of the post-modernist movement against the writer and towards the reader, which strikes me as particularly destructive of the creative efforts of role-players (amongst many other groups I indetify myself with). It seems I was taking various of my old philosophical sparring partners at their word, not the words of their supposed authorities.

It seems to me that RPG's can be seen as operating at the knife edge of interaction & independence, perhaps more than any other creative endaevour. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

From Gordon's post, I think it may be useful to think of the procedure of play as being the constant creation of the text, which the players are then, at each point, choosing VoInt or VoInd to add to either by re-incorporation or accretion of new text.

In my experience, which I recognize sounds quite different to DoctorXero's, whether the text has been created prior to play or during play is quite irrelevant for depth of immersion. I can see how it could be for some people... but I don't play with them. I'm not saying that my players prefer VoInd, but that in terms of the enjoyment, they don't care whether the text they're interacting with was laid down years ago or as it was presented to them.

But certainly, at the point of play, as the rubber meets the road, the choice is a pretty stark one between interaction with the text (with necessary caveats that any interaction must create previously non-existent interactions and intertext, otherwise it isn't interaction), or independent creation onto the text (again, with caveats that, to be meaningful, these additions must meaningfully interact in some way with the pre-existing text).

Doctor Xero wrote: I mislike the terms Manipulation and Invention because they seem to emphasize how the individual interacts with the notional structure or conceptual framework. I am more interested in the degree to which the individual interacts with the notional structure -- and the degree to which the notional structure is seemingly pre-existing (i.e. diachronically stable) for the sake of such interaction! -- and how this range influences the individual's sense of stability within the game's symbol system, the individual's sense of anticipatory predictability within the game's symbol system, and the individual's ability to creatively reconstruct and reuse and reclaim the game's symbol system.

First off - let me thank Doc Xero, Chris Lehrich and probably others I'm forgetting for "explaining" so much about where their ideas are coming from and listing various references. I appreciate it.

Pete: My experience with players matches yours, for the most part - though I have seen folks who were EXTREMELY attached to following what was "in the book," in the book meaning the setting as opposed to rules in this case. I generaly don't play with folks like that anymore.

Chris: That makes sense to me. What little depth there is to my philosophical understanding in this area lies with what are often labeled american pragmatists - Richard Rorty in particular - so that's probably no surprise. Using your terms (probably inappropriately), Doc Xero's independence and interaction seem to me to be attempts to see a percept (what is created by the pure existence of a text as text) as a sign, and neither my experience nor my (limited) theoretical grounding inclines me to see that as useful - though particular instances may provide exceptions.

Gordon