After reading (and participating in) the various posts involving cooperative and competitive gaming, the purpose of fantastical races in FRPGs (and SFRPGs), and some of the G/N/S concerns, I think I have discerned two different visions of player enjoyment goal in RPGs.

According to one vision, the player's enjoyment goal is interactive -- specifically to interact with the campaign (including setting, NPCs, perhaps plot or storyline) and through it with the other players. According to this vision, the player's enjoyment comes from having something against which and through which to interact, something stable and coherent with at least the illusion of pre-existence, although this interaction may range from competitive interaction (monsters or even other player-characters against which to battle) to dramatic interaction (tragedies and figures against which the player can enact her or his character). The campaign may be fairly responsive, the grounding or stage for impromptu activity, or fairly unresponsive, not unlike many computer games. One gaming group member is assigned the task/privilege of constructing and bringing to life this campaign against which to interact -- we call this gaming group member the game master.

According to the other vision, the player's enjoyment goal is independent -- specifically to independently create the campaign elements (including perhaps setting, NPCs, plot or storyline) with structure imposed only by group consensus (which may include competitive veto power over the player's additions to campaign or her or his character's actions) and by social contract, including any consensually determined story structure restrictions or consensually accepted game mechanics. Interaction is with the occasional restrictions enacted by group consensus, not with a pre-formed or unchanging campaign, and a player's inclination alone determines whether she or he has any interaction with any other player or with any other player's imaginative constructs. There is no need for a game master, and a game master might be seen as a disruption of each individual player's independent creative expression.

Most game systems exist somewhere on a spectrum between these two visions, although most traditional RPGs are closer to the vision of interaction while most GMless RPGs are closer to the vision of independence.

I'm not trying to state which is superior; I'm trying to discern a pattern of approaches to RPGs -- and through this a perspective within which some of the RPG controversies on this forum (and others) become clearer.

Does this schema seem to accurately encapsulate the two visions?

Doctor Xero

Not being one of the "big brains" around here (I feel more like Ben Grimm than Reed Richards on these boards) I think you are close to at least MY gaming experience.

In another thread, I over reacted to a discussion of games that you have detailed as Vision of Independence... rather than Interaction. This did come from my rather limited experience with VoIND games, which I found petty, solipsistic and frustrating.

I come from a solidly Simulationist bent (if my tenuous understanding of GNS is correct) and expect and desire Vision of Interaction in my games, whether playing or GMing. I totally see the need for players to exhibit influence over situations and story... but in the end, it is the GMs game. A good GM should make an VoINT game FEEL like a VoIND, because s/he is effective at incorporating player actions/decisions into their overall story.

It is the GM's game... but the players have influence and decision making power. Maybe "First among equals" is my feeling of how a good GM should present themselves.

I think that this notion pertains strongly to what John Kim was saying in an essay on Narrative Paradigms.

It's also akin to what I see as the "beeg horseshoe" axis that runs perpendicular to the GN one. Basically how invested are you in the notion that the character has some functional reality of a sort in the fictional reality.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: I think that this notion pertains strongly to what John Kim was saying in an essay on Narrative Paradigms.

It's also akin to what I see as the "beeg horseshoe" axis that runs perpendicular to the GN one. Basically how invested are you in the notion that the character has some functional reality of a sort in the fictional reality.

Mike Holmes wrote: I think that this notion pertains strongly to what John Kim was saying in an essay on Narrative Paradigms.

Mike Holmes wrote: It's also akin to what I see as the "beeg horseshoe" axis that runs perpendicular to the GN one. Basically how invested are you in the notion that the character has some functional reality of a sort in the fictional reality.

RDU Neil wrote: A good GM should make an VoINT game FEEL like a VoIND, because s/he is effective at incorporating player actions/decisions into their overall story.

It is the GM's game... but the players have influence and decision making power. Maybe "First among equals" is my feeling of how a good GM should present themselves.

Doctor Xero wrote: Since I find interaction far more interesting (perhaps because, as a scholar, I spend a lot of research time in independent not interactive activity, and most teaching while interactive is not a "first among equals" experience, alas), I prefer the VoINT game more. In that way, I guess I'd be seen as a stodgy traditionalist by some of the VoIND enthusiasts in these fora.

RDU Neil wrote: I totally see the need for players to exhibit influence over situations and story... but in the end, it is the GMs game. A good GM should make an VoINT game FEEL like a VoIND, because s/he is effective at incorporating player actions/decisions into their overall story.

greyorm wrote:

RDU Neil wrote: I totally see the need for players to exhibit influence over situations and story... but in the end, it is the GMs game. A good GM should make an VoINT game FEEL like a VoIND, because s/he is effective at incorporating player actions/decisions into their overall story.

Query: isn't that simply Illusionism? What you are describing sounds, to me, exactly what I would describe Illusionist play as.

RDU Neil wrote:
Please define "illusionist" or point me in the direction of a definition. I've no idea how you are using this term.

contracycle wrote:

RDU Neil wrote:
Please define "illusionist" or point me in the direction of a definition. I've no idea how you are using this term.

Illusionism
A mode of story creation by the GM in which his or her decisions carry more weight than those of the players, in which he or she has authority over rules-outcomes, and in which the players willingly or unwillingly do not recognize these features. See Illusionism: a new look and a new approach and Illusionism and GNS for a more complete definition and associated discussions.

This from the article (see top of the page for articles) on Simulationism, where the two bolded entries are links to threads.

Here is the direct link to the Illusionist thread.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4232

The more I read about this, the more I realize I'm totally an Illusionist... and my group is both knowing and unknowing in their participation. Some feel "wow, we are so cool at telling the story" and others realize how much I back load stuff, flex in game, etc., so that player actions "do matter."

To that end, I'm even more confused about Nar type play, since I see a group of true equals just stalemating in competitive "no, I say the scence goes like THIS!" situations. At best, you get the VoIND situation where the players are in the same room, but might as well not be... each exploring their own solipsistic slice of the world, and ignoring the other players.

Hello Neil,

Let me lay your doubts to rest on one issue: Illusionist techniques are very, very common and powerful in the context of Simulationist play.

I strongly suggest that you have not quite managed to process the difference between Exploration (required for all role-playing) and Simulationist play (a very specific aesthetic and creative criterion for how to play).

Habitual illusionist role-players are almost guaranteed to be boggled by Narrativist play, and vice versa. I hope to have explained why, in detail, in Narrativism: Step On Up.

Have you looked over that essay with that issue in mind? Start with the ideas that "this is not what I do," and that "this is something I should not be threatened by," and I think it'll show you why illusionist techniques are usually anathema to the entire Narrativist mode of play.

The effect is compounded when Gamism, specifically Gamism-avoidance, is taken into account. Efforts to expunge opportunities for Gamist play tend also to expunge Narrativist opportunities (the two modes are very similar, procedurally), which is why you're concerned that Narrativist approaches would lead to a competitive play-context.

I'm not sure I can provide much more insight than I tried to provide in that essay, in particular, so let me know if you have any questions about anything I've said in it.

Bear in mind as well that a play-transcript which is identifiable as a story, because it does present a theme, does not have to have been produced through Narrativist play. You can very well have been playing thematically, but not Narrativist, for all this time.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: I hope to have explained why, in detail, in Narrativism: Step On Up.

ethan_greer wrote:

Ron Edwards wrote: I hope to have explained why, in detail, in Narrativism: Step On Up.

Huh? What's this? An article in the works, or an error? Did you mean "Narrativism: Story Now?"

Mike Holmes wrote: What games have you played that would convince you of this? I see a lot of people claim that they wouldn't like this sort of game without even trying it. I don't mean to sound like your mother, but have you played InSpectres?

My bleeding eyes ...

Narrativism: Story Now
Gamism: Step On Up

Neil, you are on the right track, although look out - there are plenty of folks around here who bring that metagame level to Simulationist play too. Nod and smile at them. As far as historical approaches to Simulationist play are concerned, you're on it.

You might as just sit around the room and talk about gaming (which is a lot of fun) but to actually call that the game itself. Whoa. Totally NOT a mode I'd ever prefer.

RDU Neil wrote: Now I've got to figure out how GNS proposes behavior changes, rather than just analysis. Is there a specific part of the articles you'd suggest I re-read... since you seem to indicate that GNS is intended to help fix dysfunctional games... and by that I would assume it gives suggestions for behavioral changes to enact.

Andrew Norris wrote: Let's take a hypothetical example. We'll say you, Neil, have a player with Narrativist leanings, and wants to be able to set up scenes in which his character could explore a moral premise. Maybe they'll propose, during the game, a scene between two NPCs that leads to a crisis, and have his character walk in on the scene at that moment.

Now that's Narrativism in Author stance, but from what you've said, you might very well describe that as "talking about roleplaying" -- not playing at all. My guess would be that you'd be unlikely to take this player's suggestion. Frustration ensues, even though neither of you are wrong, but there's a disconnect between modes of play there. You're not sure why he's wanting to break immersion so blatantly, and he's not sure why you won't let him do this cool scene he'd like to have happen.

The GNS model doesn't fix that kind of situation at all, but it makes it pretty explicit where the disconnect lies. That, hopefully, means it's easier to discuss and iron out between the human beings involved.

Andrew Norris wrote: Frustration ensues, even though neither of you are wrong, but there's a disconnect between modes of play there. You're not sure why he's wanting to break immersion so blatantly, and he's not sure why you won't let him do this cool scene he'd like to have happen.

Whoa... HERE is Andrew.

Ok... this thread is being quoted in a similar thread in the GNS forum. My brain is splitting, but I think I'm following it.

Over in that thread, I said something very similar to Doctor Xero (man, he and I have a lot in common :) )

I said that those "I want this kind of scene..." discussions take place all the time "before and after" the game... not during. Just like DX noted here.

So, to that extent, I have no problem with Narrativist/thematic desires by the players... but I'm uncomfortable with them breaking immersion during a game. Once in a while, ok... but I'd rather it come out "in charcter" with the player speaking about "character intent" and leaving "player intent" to be discussed over pizza, later.

Right there with ya, Doc!

RDU Neil wrote: If I got that right, then no wonder I'm confused by Nar play. You might as just sit around the room and talk about gaming (which is a lot of fun) but to actually call that the game itself. Whoa. Totally NOT a mode I'd ever prefer.

Hello,

I think you guys will find this thread interesting: thoughts on why immersion is a tar baby, including the threads linked inside it.

Best,
Ron

Ron, thank you for those links. I'd be interested in hearing Neil and Xero's responses to the thoughts there.

I'm going to summarize a discussion I just had with my players, because it seems to raise the same points about prioritizing immersion.

In prepping our next session, I was discussing Author stance vs. Actor stance with them and I encountered a lot of resistance to Author stance in the name of immersion. The reason this surprised me is that I've already introduced limited Author stance and had it well-received. Players are allowed to spend a metagame resource ("Plot points", 3 per session) to narrate the outcome of an event. I'd allow them to apply this to narrate the duration of the scene, but they've exclusively used them for a round's worth of action at most. Still, I've had players do things like shoot the supports out of a shelf to collapse it on an enemy during a firefight, or have a NPC fall onto a landmine that hadn't been previously mentioned. That seems like pure Author stance to me.

What I realized in continuing this conversation about immersion was that while the players have used this rule for both Gamist and Sim rewards (victory over an enemy in one case, thoroughly establishing a particular NPC as incompetant in the other), they still considered this "breaking the rules" and so were only comfortable with it as a limited resource.

I suggested the possibility of extending Author stance to describing the outcome of entire scenes (for instance, introducing a minor NPC as a foil, in order to play out a scene illustrating one aspect of their PC's character). Two of my players immediately said this broke immersion and they didn't like it. (They also made comments like "It's okay, man, it's the GM's job to set up scenes for us. We don't want to step on your toes.")

So my question, which I'll ask my players as well as Neil and Xero, is this: Why is it okay to introduce ideas for new characters and scenes outside of play, but not during play? If the answer is "That's my preference", that's fine. If it's "That's how you're supposed to play", I have to question that. (I mean this in a "What do you mean, I want to understand" fashion, rather than a "How dare you say that" one.)

I do have to admit that I almost exclusively GM; I've been a player in only a handful of games in the last decade. For me, that's meant that I've never myself sought out immersion. I'm not sure if that's just a statement about me, or if it means that people who've enjoyed a lot of Sim / Exploration of Character play (in Actor stance) bring that preference with them when they GM.

Still, I've had players do things like shoot the supports out of a shelf to collapse it on an enemy during a firefight, or have a NPC fall onto a landmine that hadn't been previously mentioned. That seems like pure Author stance to me.

Andrew Norris wrote: So my question, which I'll ask my players as well as Neil and Xero, is this: Why is it okay to introduce ideas for new characters and scenes outside of play, but not during play? If the answer is "That's my preference", that's fine. If it's "That's how you're supposed to play", I have to question that. (I mean this in a "What do you mean, I want to understand" fashion, rather than a "How dare you say that" one.)

As for what immersion is . . .

Well, we usually define it, from the theatre perspective, as method acting. We find it similar to the concept of "flow" as explicated by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book, *Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience*. However, I would not begin to attempt a definitive definition of the term; I haven't studied it that much, to be candid.

Doctor Xero

The problem with modeling your immersive experience on a theatre performance, is that in roleplaying you don't have rehearsals.

In any game there is going to come an opportunity to make the experience better, to make the climax more powerful, to make the denouement more moving, to make the build up more suspenseful. But doing so requires communication amongst the participants.

This is no different than a theatre rehearsal when a scene isn't clicking and the director calls the cast together for a pow wow on why. Its even more visible in movie making where the director can call cut and then call an actor over and give tips for how to change the performance. Many actors and directors will even collaborate on rewriting part of the script or changing the portrayal of a character...because in a movie with top quality cast and crew, the opinion of the stars and directors and producers can help make a good script better.

By refusing to break the wall with immersive roleplaying, you lose this opportunity to tap the collective creative energies of the play group in ways that can't be captured through mere in character portrayal. In this sense I find (as I have said before) full Immersion to be an inherently selfish play style because it puts the personal desire and enjoyment of "staying in character" ahead of the enjoyment of everyone else at the table. By this I mean things like having an opportunity to set up a truly powerful and moving scene for another player, but to pull it off would require OOC commentery. IMO any player who refuses to engage in that OOC commentery because doing so would "break immersion" is making a selfish decision. Further there are many things that go on in a player's mind about his character; things that cannot be or wouldn't make sense to be portrayed with in character acting. But these things can often be portrayed simply and easily and not overly disruptively with OOC comments or exposition. Refusing to engage in such comments robs the other players of the ability to enjoy the deep development of your character that is going on in your head. Again, what I feel to be selfish behavior.

Having the OOC discussions with each other in between sessions can help mitigate alot of this, especially if sessions are short and well foreshadowed, but I think its impossible to realise the full creative potential of a role playing session without using both IC and OOC tools. I also find that most people in my direct experience who expressed a preference for immersion, were largely doing so by habit. I've encountered numerous people who edited out comments they would have liked to make because they thought it "wasn't allowed" or that it was a sign of "poor roleplaying" because that was the way they'd been taught. But freed of such concerns they found they could enjoy the immersive experience of their character and yet still enhance the game overall by occassionally stepping out of character to creatively interact with the other players.

IMO, Immersion should never be allowed to get in the way of making good roleplaying better.

Doctor Xero wrote:

Andrew Norris wrote: So my question, which I'll ask my players as well as Neil and Xero, is this: Why is it okay to introduce ideas for new characters and scenes outside of play, but not during play? If the answer is "That's my preference", that's fine. If it's "That's how you're supposed to play", I have to question that. (I mean this in a "What do you mean, I want to understand" fashion, rather than a "How dare you say that" one.)

During a superhero game, I am the universe interacting with Captain Powerbolt, The Amazing Run-Really-Fast Man, Lady Lemuria, and Dr. Magickus. Outside of play, I am the guy who game masters this campaign talking with my friends Lisa, Jordan, Brian, and Anita. It makes sense for Brian to tell me that he'd like his character to discover her daughter works at an abortion clinic, and it doesn't jeopardize immersion, because outside game we're simply two friends discussing a shared storytelling/simulation/gaming hobby. However, it does not make sense for Lady Lemuria to suddenly turn to the universe and say in a man's voice, "Hey, Xero, wouldn't it be cool if I was surprised by finding out my daughter is the doctor at this clinic?" unless either I want to violate immersion or I'm running a surreal game with breaking of the fourth wall as a technique.

...Tears in Jordan's eyes as well as in his character's, he confronts the father, whom I play out as best I can. Just as Jordan starts to tell his father off, Brian helpfully points out that it would make more sense if Jordan's character were out of superhero costume. We all agree he's right; however, the moment has been blown, Jordan has been forcefully torn out of the immersion in his character, and we never recover it.

Now that I think about it, I would wager that this is one of the reasons we don't enjoy shared game-mastering. The game master is the member of the group saddled with the chore of forsaking immersion for the sake of running the game. No one wants to give up the immersion, so no one wants to share the game mastering. For us, a GMless game is one in which everyone loses immersion. The game master sacrifices that sense of immersion for his or her players, and that is how the game master gets to be heroic as well.

clehrich wrote:

Doctor Xero wrote: ...Tears in Jordan's eyes as well as in his character's, he confronts the father, whom I play out as best I can. Just as Jordan starts to tell his father off, Brian helpfully points out that it would make more sense if Jordan's character were out of superhero costume. We all agree he's right; however, the moment has been blown, Jordan has been forcefully torn out of the immersion in his character, and we never recover it.

Brian need not have done it this way. All he needed to say was, "I look down at my threadbare suit, absently picking fluff off my pants and wishing Father could see me in my real suit." Here the invention was not something likely to be overruled -- the scene made more sense with Jordan in ordinary clothes. So Brian could simply have made some reference to his ordinary clothes and everyone who had been thinking of this as Jordan in Super-Suit would revise comfortably. No blown flow, no loss of effect.

The essential difficulty in these examples, as I read it, is that the players are not comfortable making certain kinds of inventions without the GM's explicit validation. This has nothing to do with narrative flow or GNS; it's simply a question of comfort with certain Techniques. Given the way your group likes to play, I'd recommend that people actually sit down and think about widening their range of Techniques available. I think if Brian had been explicitly aware of the possibility of inserting his "correction" without needing to break frame to confer with you, you would all remember this scene very differently.

I just re-read Xero's post, and it occurs to me that John's reading one way and I'm reading another. Furthermore, he's reading right and I'm misreading.

I was thinking that Jordan was Brian's character, you see. I thought the point here was that Brian asked whether it would be okay for his character, Jordan, not to be in-suit. Re-reading, I find that Jordan and Brian are both players.

Ooops.

As Willy Wonka said, "No, wait. Stop. Reverse that."

Chris Lehrich

Valamir wrote: IMO, Immersion should never be allowed to get in the way of making good roleplaying better.

Valamir wrote: Refusing to engage in such comments robs the other players of the ability to enjoy the deep development of your character that is going on in your head. Again, what I feel to be selfish behavior.

Valamir wrote: In this sense I find (as I have said before) full Immersion to be an inherently selfish play style

clehrich wrote: I just re-read Xero's post, and it occurs to me that John's reading one way and I'm reading another. Furthermore, he's reading right and I'm misreading.

I was thinking that Jordan was Brian's character, you see. I thought the point here was that Brian asked whether it would be okay for his character, Jordan, not to be in-suit. Re-reading, I find that Jordan and Brian are both players.

Xero, in other threads where I've made this point I also made a point of saying that this sort of Deep Immersion can work just fine when it is a universally agreed upon part of the social contract by all participants (just as hard core gamist agendas can work just fine if that's the agreed upon contract).

I apologize for neglecting to make that point here as well.

I will admit, however, that my initial reaction to most claims of a favorite play style is to be somewhat skeptical, because in my experience most claims of "I like to play like X" really translates to "I've always played liked X since I was taught to roleplay this way and haven't really given anything else a fair chance". I think one has to have pretty substantial experience trying a multitude of ways to play before one can truly settle in on a favorite style. Like Mike H. is fond of saying, "most gamers would wind up likeing and enjoying most styles of play if they were done well"

I also tend to be skeptical of claims that consist of "everyone in my group prefers it too", because too often that translates to "several in the group tolerate it because they want to play something and hang out with their friends, and even though they'd rather be playing differently they don't want to disrupt the social aspect of the group by being disagreeable about it"

So again I must apologize for not making that clearer in my above post, because while I hold these to be fairly true as rules of thumb, I obviously have zero experience with your group and should have done a better job pointing out that I was making a general claim and not targeting your group specifically.

Valamir wrote: I will admit, however, that my initial reaction to most claims of a favorite play style is to be somewhat skeptical, because in my experience most claims of "I like to play like X" really translates to "I've always played liked X since I was taught to roleplay this way and haven't really given anything else a fair chance". I think one has to have pretty substantial experience trying a multitude of ways to play before one can truly settle in on a favorite style. Like Mike H. is fond of saying, "most gamers would wind up likeing and enjoying most styles of play if they were done well"

Andrew Norris:

So my question, which I'll ask my players as well as Neil and Xero, is this: Why is it okay to introduce ideas for new characters and scenes outside of play, but not during play?

I want to address the single vision concern.

I've been playing games that invite player creative input at many levels during play, from acting thier PC, to introducting new NPCs or situations, to requesting scene with specific agendas, to interpreting what a dice result means specifically. In this kind of game, I've found each individual's experience is not just generated by their own contributions, but by how they play off of the contributions of others. Outside elements inspire us to new ideas we would not have had otherwise for our own characters.

This kind of synthesis seems to happen naturally. Very few players come into a session knowing exactly what they wanted to happen. It just evolves in play. The hardest part has been for me, as GM, to give up my old ideas that _I_ should know what's going to happen in advance. It's proven to be great fun.

So these techniques, rather than making play predictable, make it less predictable, providing more creative sparks to play off.

Alan:

I want to address the single vision concern.

<snip>

I've found each individual's experience is not just generated by their own contributions, but by how they play off of the contributions of others. Outside elements inspire us to new ideas we would not have had otherwise for our own characters.

Hi Risto,

CREATIVE SPARKS

I think my previous post was in fact a little off topic. I was commenting, not on how decisions are made, but on how elements that already exist spark creative ideas. The process I see is that even when a player has lots of control and power over his contributions to the shared fantasy, he's going to find his story is not boring because it bounces off new elements that appear in the game.



BOUNDARIES OF POWER

I think that "Collectivism" and "Interactivity" don't match as terms. They seem to confuse two different issues.

This axis is about who has say in each individual addition to the shared fantasy - Boundaries of power - What elements does the player get to play a part in the decision to accept something into the shared fantasy? At the "collective" level, every player has power over every decision, regardless of whether it's about their character, someone else's, an NPC, the weather, or even a piece of scenery.

There would also be another end of this scale, but I think "Interactivity" is a poor choice of label for it. The best I can come up with right now is "Restricted." A common example of play at this end of the bounary axis would be the historical distrution of GM and player boundaries: players only deciding what their character's think, feel, and try to do, while the GM decides everything else.


TYPE of POWER within a BOUNDARY

Once you establish _who_ can participate in a decision to add to the shared fantasy, you still have to define what kind of proposals an individual player can make. I think this is related to Stances. Traditionally, players have 100% power within Actor stance, some in Author stance, and very little in Director stance.


The two axes interact like this:

Example A

Axis 1 - Everyone has equal say in whether John's idea gets put into play.

Axis 2 - John has power to propose that his character enter a specific scene - BUT he doesn't have the power to propose that another PC stumbles into _his_ scene.


Example B

Axis 1 - Only the GM can finalize a decision.

Axis 2 - John has power to propose that any character enter a specific scene.

Itse wrote: What's the difference between this and what Xero wrote? It's in the reversed need for GM. In (my definition of) interactive gameplay (which is close to what Xero described as independent, sorry for the inconvenience again), a GM is needed, since she is the one responsible for controlling "the rest"; all those parts which have not been assigned to anyone. Also, she is the one refereeing the possible (propable) conflicts between the different visions when the different parts come to conflict. More commonly, the GM is the person who is given control over most things, while each player controls her own part (the actions of her character). Thus, the GM has the most power to apply her vision.

Alan wrote: This axis is about who has say in each individual addition to the shared fantasy - Boundaries of power - What elements does the player get to play a part in the decision to accept something into the shared fantasy? At the "collective" level, every player has power over every decision, regardless of whether it's about their character, someone else's, an NPC, the weather, or even a piece of scenery.

There would also be another end of this scale, but I think "Interactivity" is a poor choice of label for it. The best I can come up with right now is "Restricted." A common example of play at this end of the bounary axis would be the historical distrution of GM and player boundaries: players only deciding what their character's think, feel, and try to do, while the GM decides everything else.


TYPE of POWER within a BOUNDARY

Once you establish _who_ can participate in a decision to add to the shared fantasy, you still have to define what kind of proposals an individual player can make. I think this is related to Stances. Traditionally, players have 100% power within Actor stance, some in Author stance, and very little in Director stance.

Hi all,

Dr. Xero wrote:

"In independent mode, the player derives gaming enjoyment specifically from independence from anything outside him or herself -- independence from other players, independence from any shared setting given coherence by someone conscripted to organize/cohere the setting for them, i.e. the game master.

In the independent context, it would be intrusive and restrictive for anyone -- game master, other players -- to provide any pre-existing setting or static/stable NPC with which the player through his/her character must interact. The player alone decides what setting or what NPCs exist for his/her character's interaction, limited only by group consensus as defined by the game system's mechanics."


Can anyone give me any examples of rules or actual play where something like this actually happens? It's not that I don't believe it happens, it's just that it seems so extreme I've never heard of it -- and I honestly can't imagine such a thing working well for more than 25 minutes.

(Oh, I'm refering specifically to table top gaming examples, not chat or email stuff.)

Thanks,

Christopher

I'm with Christopher. I've never seen role-playing where each player lives in his own private fantasy.

If I understand Doctor Xero's definitions of independant and interactive, all role-playing is interactive. It can't function otherwise.

Christopher Kubasik wrote: Can anyone give me any examples of rules or actual play where something like this actually happens? It's not that I don't believe it happens, it's just that it seems so extreme I've never heard of it -- and I honestly can't imagine such a thing working well for more than 25 minutes.

Doctor Xero wrote: Most game systems exist somewhere on a spectrum between these two visions, although most traditional RPGs are closer to the vision of interaction while most GMless RPGs are closer to the vision of independence.

Itse wrote: If you draw a line for yourself, which says that "during play, I can only do X", it effectively removes temptation to "spoil it" by introducing elements which will help bring about a desired result but which will weaken the "artistic experience".

Itse wrote: When I go see a movie, I want to see a story which I wouldn't myself have told in that exact way. "I know my stories, I came here to see yours."

Doctor Xero wrote: According to one vision, the player's enjoyment goal is interactive
---snip!--
According to the other vision, the player's enjoyment goal is independent -- specifically to independently create the campaign elements

... but Doctor Xero's description is not far off from what I felt happened in my one playing experience of a VoIND game. It was Changeling, run mostly diceless, with a GM, but one who only nominally structured the world, and otherwise simply waited for players to come up with actions befitting their characters, rather than exerting some control on the game so that players had a reason to interact with each other.

Players all but ignored events that the GM described, as well as other players attempts to interact in a shared world. While they didn't go off on flights of fancy such as Doc described above, they did forge personal story lines for their characters that allowed them to "be" that character... but I felt in a very selfish, solipsitic manner. One player simply disagreed with everything that was presented to her or happened around her, and wrote it off as being a "Nocker!" Another ran about describing his affectations and such, and pursuing a social agenda which was interesting in concept, but made no effort to talk with the other players, respond to their attempts to interact, or care at all about what the other characters did. A third just quietly sat and listened to everyone else, but did nothing himself. A fourth strutted about made battle plans and decisions that would affect the whole group, but never asked for assistance or told the others what he would do.

It was a nightmare, except for the GMs wife, who was playing a nutball character who was at least fun to talk to.

I will say that this was clearly VoIND gaming... but not at all Narrative in the GNS, sense. It was Sim with a focus on character... players so "into" their characters that they used that as a method to just do their own thing, without interacting with others.

This thread has helped me understand a bit more about GNS, by showing that VoIND doesn't necessarily describe Nar play... but can happen in any one of the three CAs, as Ron has defined them.

The layers upon layers of complexity in these theories almost makes the worthless as anything more than chatter fodder... but hey, it's interesting chatter fodder.

This seems like nothing more than pure Lumpley Principle, and dysfunctional Lunmply Principle at that. The Lumpley Principle basically says that nothing said in any game has any credibility except to the extent that the player give it credibility. These players aren't giving credibility to anything but their own statements. This seems to me to be a fundamental social dysfunction. Don't see any other definition for it (save for the possibility of a social contract agreeing to play this way as part of some surreal experiment).

What you're describing is not a path to RPG enjoyment, its shear dysfunction at the social level. And pretty egregiously so.

Surely this must just be a bad example, and not what you really are trying to describe as being VoInd...

Hi.

Sorry for being thick.

Does this thing called VoInd actually exist? That is, not as in the example RDU Neil offered (which might be summed up as "Boy, I'm glad that's over!") But as something people are actually doing regularly.

The first post of this thread suggest that these two "goals" of play (VoInd/VoInt) were revealed by reading the threads on these boards. But, again, I'm not quite seeing anything like VoInd anwhere on the boards -- either in terms of published rules or actual *enjoyed* play. (The enjoyed play is vital to the example, since the thesis presumes this sort of thing is actually a goal.)

I could *imagine* -- though I'm not saying this is the case -- that someone with a real affection for strong GM authority might look at any game that loosens that power as a recipe for chaos at the gaming table. Is that what's going on here? A radical misinterpretation of other styles of play outside of traditional GM/Player relationships? 'Cause I really don't see players on these boards, or any actual games discussed on these boards, advocating people actually having no connection with each other at all.

So, again: any real games, any actual play? If not, aren't we discussing a straw man made of imaginary straw?

Christopher

PS Universalis might be seen as VoInd if you looked at it from the wrong angle on a cloudy day -- in that reality gets "built" by players one block at a time, but you're still building on what came before, or are at least responsible to it. You simply *can't* ignore what happened -- even if you change the very fabric of the game's reality you need to a) toss a lot resources b) interact with other players during a bidding process and win against those who might oppose you. I'm not even saying this is what you're talking about -- but it's the closest thing to VoInd I can think of -- but only if one has only heard of Universalis and never playe it.

Valamir wrote:
Surely this must just be a bad example, and not what you really are trying to describe as being VoInd...

Oh, man.

This is hard for Ralph and I to discuss, because obviously as the designers of a game that has elements that are similar in some ways to what Xero is calling VoInd, we have a bias in supporting the mode.

But as we've also played the game more than anyone else, our observations are pretty important to the discussion. So, will people accept that the following is an attempt to discuss things in an unbiased fashion? Assuming that's the case, I'll continue.

In play of this sort, the rules stand in for the GM in terms of unifying the action - or, rather, they should. I'd agree with Xero and Neil that play like they're describing can happen with systems like they're describing. Neil has the right of it - in a game with rules like this, there has to be a strong agreement pre-game not to let it get all messy and whatnot, or it will.

In which case, I'm not sure what the point of the rules are, really. In these cases, they might exist to order turns or sometning, but, essentially, what you have here is freeform. Which works, as Neil points out, perfectly well with the right group with the right attitude, etc, etc. That is, the bad play described is the result of bad planning, and people who really didn't understand what they were doing, or people who were expecting more guidance.

That's to say that you can go out there and find way more coherent play of freeform by the truckload if you just look. What the examples above look like to me is Table-top gamers who are trying something outside their experience. No surprise that it would suck so. They don't really know the "rules" that people who play these games correctly do know.

Now, all that said, a game that does not have a GM or established world can actually have reinforcers for continuity. For example, one can have reward systems that are designed around trying to link into the previous actions of the other players. One can even have rewards for "keeping the party together" if one wants (or punishments for doing otherwise). Basically you can design a game that rewards any behavior that's desired with regards to these issues.

So, the example, being only one possible game of the infinite variety of games that can be covered by the definition, doesn't say anything about this style of game. It says that badly designed games don't do what they're designed to do, or that sometimes players play the wrong game. These are universally true, and have nothing to do with the type of game being described. Yes, the feel of the game might be different - as John's essay points out. But then different people play for different reasons.

Long ago, players bemoaned how there was this group of players who didn't play to win, but instead played for what they called "Story". The whole role playing vs. roll playing debate that raged in the eighties and into the nineties. What these people on both sides didn't understand was that both modes of play were valid, despite not being what they thought "role-playing" was supposed to be. To make their points the Roll players would point to sessions they'd played in that were dull because there was no sense of challenge in them. The Role players would point to sessions they'd played in that were dull because the players never got into character.

Please don't accidentally do the same thing here. It's as bad an argument now about what play in the other style is like as it was 20 years ago.

Mike

Christopher Kubasik wrote: So, again: any real games, any actual play? If not, aren't we discussing a straw man made of imaginary straw?

Valamir wrote: This seems like nothing more than pure Lumpley Principle, and dysfunctional Lunmply Principle at that. The Lumpley Principle basically says that nothing said in any game has any credibility except to the extent that the player give it credibility. These players aren't giving credibility to anything but their own statements.

RDU Neil wrote: Now... as I type this, I begin to think... a VoIND game really requires a solidly established, discussed and agreed upon, Social Contract. A VoINT game... likely more traditional in the RPG sense... might have such a defined SC, but doesn't need it, as the GM position is a "given" in such a game... there is an accepted shared imaginary space initiated by, and ultimately judged by, one authority. VoINT comes with a social contract in place (of a sorts.)

RDU Neil wrote: VoIND, OTOH, requires the group to actively establish the details of the social contract before the game (Constitutional Convention, anyone?) or it risks dysfunction and chaos.

RDU Neil wrote: Doc Xero? Does that match what you were thinking with VoINT and VoIND?

Mike Holmes wrote: What the examples above look like to me is Table-top gamers who are trying something outside their experience. No surprise that it would suck so. They don't really know the "rules" that people who play these games correctly do know.

Mike Holmes wrote: This is hard for Ralph and I to discuss, because obviously as the designers of a game that has elements that are similar in some ways to what Xero is calling VoInd, we have a bias in supporting the mode.
---snip!--
Please don't accidentally do the same thing here. It's as bad an argument now about what play in the other style is like as it was 20 years ago.

Doc,

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that what you're defining as VoIND Gaming no one here likes.

Who are these people who are saying playing this way is a fun time? Can you point me to any examples? Can you name any games?

I understand you like what you like, and you don't like what you don't like. But as far as I can tell, what you're describing as what you don't like nobody here would like.

As you have defined VoIND gaming, I have no examples of a successful game. I don't even know why you asked me to offer examples, since I suggested in my first post on this thread, I have no idea of how such a thing would work, let alone have played such a thing.

Is there anyway I can make this clear and get an answer to my question? Who are these people advocating such things around here? What are the games?

Your description of of VoIND ("the player derives gaming enjoyment specifically from independence from anything outside him or herself -- independence from other players, independence from any shared setting given coherence by someone conscripted to organize/cohere the setting for them, i.e. the game master. In the independent context, it would be intrusive and restrictive for anyone -- game master, other players -- to provide any pre-existing setting or static/stable NPC with which the player through his/her character must interact. The player alone decides what setting or what NPCs exist for his/her character's interaction, limited only by group consensus as defined by the game system's mechanics." ) as a workable game play seems to me to be an null set. As far as I can tell, such a thing (a workable things) simply DOES NOT EXIST.

Who ever on this board advocated such a thing? Can you please direct me to threads, quotes, actual rules, actual examples of play?

You seem to be saying, "There's X and there's Y, and it's just my opinion, but I like X, and really haven't liked Y, but a lot of people claim Y is 'more mature (or whatnot)' and that's their business, but I like X, and here are my problems with Y."

And that's all well and good -- but who is playing Y?

And I'm simply asking, bluntly as I can: Who are these people who like what you've defined as VoIND? Where are they on these boards? What rules are they using? Where are these claims of maturity? Where are actual examples of anyone arguing for this thing you don't like? I've been here for years now and I don't ever recall anyone saying, "I can't wait for that session next week where I derive gaming enjoyment specifically from independence from anything outside myself -- independence from other players, independence from any shared setting given coherence by someone conscripted to organize/cohere the setting."

Could you please point me toward something concrete? Because as it stands you seem to be creating this nightmare version of something without a GM -- and I don't know who the heck would want to play you're suggesting.

Please, Doctor. You're the one who claims people are advocating it. I can't illustarate a thing I don't think exists as an actual goal of people on these boards.

Please. Offer up some specific of actual people around here saying acutal things advocating actual rules or actual gameplay.

Thanks,

Christopher

Edited to note cross post with Christopher.

The example I have given is a simplified and abbreviated version of just one of my personal experiences with VoIND gaming. If this doesn't match your experiences, I would very much appreciate it if you could provide a similarly brief example so that I might see what you would consider to be a successful VoIND game.

I started this topic for three reasons. One is simply the intellectual interest in variety of approaches -- that some people prefer a stable context within which to play (VoINT) and some people prefer a continuously impromptu context (VoIND).

Since a number of people who post on the Forge seem convinced that VoIND gaming is superior and more mature than the style I enjoy, my hope is to evoke from them insights into good VoIND gaming -- but without disrespect for VoINT gaming since I'd rather learn about VoIND gaming than have to spend time defending VoINT gaming.

When I game, I take pleasure in seeing how well I can immerse myself within my character and act out how she/he reacts to and interacts with a pre-existing stable reality, a pleasure which is lost if I also control that reality at my will and whim -- because then I'm not interacting with someone else's imagination, I'm playing within myself, and if I'm going to do that I will derive more pleasure from staying home and writing my stories for possible publication

For examples of Universalis play, see:
http://universalis.actionroll.com/ExamplesOfPlay.html

Now that Ralph and I have blathered on about this, could somebody with a less biased position please come in and either deconstruct or support what he and I have said. I don't want our word for this to be the only one presented.

In any case, Ralph isn't saying (or would be wrong if he did, IMO), to say that there aren't differences in the feel of play of these styles. He's just saying that a lot of people assume that you have to "give up" more that you probably do when playing in the non-concrete world style. It may be that your players will never change their opinions on the subject, perhaps for very good personal reasons. But that, again, is just their preference, and says nothing about whether or not other people can enjoy the other mode.

Like Ralph says, a lot of work has been done to get away from the "X is superior" mindset in game theory (something we owe mostly to the work done on the Threefold Model, if I'm not mistaken). So, as long as you trust us not to berate your methods, we'll trust you not to berate ours (analyze, yes, berate, no).

Mike

Let's give Xero a little chance here. I would point out that he gave an example earlier in the thread. Quoting from his earlier post (end of page 1):

Doctor Xero wrote: My longest experience with VoIND was an online GMless game I played once during one of those times I am able to allot to leisure time. I spend enough time in the role of teacher or alone in research and creative writing and such that I look forward to my communal experiences, and one of my friends encouraged me to try my hand at this online stuff.

All the other online players were completely involved in their private character development and their individual character interactions with the reality they individually controlled, only noticing what other players did long enough to veto this action or that addition to the shared game world.

John,

A fair point. But the "thesis" named at the start of this thread, and reiterated several times during the thread, claims to be inspired by threads read here at the Forge.

If I may, Dr. X seems to be conflating his bad experience on-line with ideas floating around here that he doesn't get (either because he hasn't yet played such games mentioned around here, hasn't read their rules, or simply is mapping "my bad experience online" to "games I'm reading about here that I don't yet understand.")

Using Ralph's ice cream metaphore, I'm perfectly willing to believe that Dr. X has eaten other kinds of ice cream than Strawberry. He ate, if I may, Shitty Ice Cream and said, "I don't like it."

My concern about the way this thread is running is that he somehow inferred that other people around here are pushing Shitty Ice Cream, prefer Shitty Ice Cream, and think Shity Ice Cream is more more mature.

None of this is the case, however. What he described sounded like Shitty Ice Cream to me, and I'd want no part of it. I'd wager money everyone on this board would agree that sure sounded like Shitty Ice Cream and they'd never want it in their mouth either.

So if Doc wants to write a thread that says, "There's this Shitty Ice Cream I ate, and it was sure shitty. I never want it again. I'm sticking to Strawberry over that." That's cool.

But when he says, "I had Shitty Ice Cream, and I've noticed there are people around here he seem to want shity ice cream," when in fact no one around here wants Shitty Ice Cream -- well, that's just plain weird.

Now, if Doc really believes this and wants to go on believing this, that's fine. But my concern, as always, is for the guy who shows up on the Forge, is struggling to understand something he's drawn to but can't quite understand, and comes across a thread like this where the good doctor is laying down a whole paradigm about certain kinds of games that are just wrong.

I feel compelled to get him to either back up the statement with actual examples of actual rules or actual play (so I learn something I never knew about my fellow Forgers before), or he says, "You know, maybe I've been going a tad overboard with these statements," so the new guy to the Forge doesn't think, for lack of reisistance to doc's ideas, that doc was making any sense.

Cause at this moment his new concept of VoIND seems to have no connection to anything that's posted here at the Forge, and I just can't see how he's making any sense.

Christopher

I'm fully in agreement with Christopher's point about the necessity of clarifying these things for posterity.

But John is absolutely right. We've thrown a heck of a lot of stuff at Dr. Xero in this thread (much of it by me) and its now over 4 pages long.

I'm going to channel Ron a minute here and suggest we all take an extended breather (myself included...ok, included squared) and perhaps Dr. Xero would be good enough to start a whole new thread when he's had a chance to digest and integrate.

hmm, maybe this will help . . .

"Lumpley" (for which I am NOT finding any good links for at the moment - "good" meaning non-flamey) is the principle that underlies both Doc Xero's customary game play and Universalis. Which is no surprise, since it's the principle that underlies ALL RPG play. In one version:

The Lumpley Principle:
When one participant says that something happens in the game, what has to happen in the real world before, indeed, it happens? Bottom line: all the participants have to assent to it. Mechanics can help create and shape this consensus, as part of negotiations, but they cannot make things happen in the game without it. This process -- statement -> negotiation -> consensus -- is the game's System in play.

Doctor Xero wrote: Most game systems exist somewhere on a spectrum between these two visions

Christopher Kubasik wrote: Who are these people who are saying playing this way is a fun time? Can you point me to any examples? Can you name any games?

I don't think I've said anything on this thread; and now that I've suddenly got something to say, everyone is saying be quiet.

Well, forgive me if I speak out of turn; I'm hoping this will help.

Now, I've seen online play, particularly in chat rooms, that had very little resemblance to a game. People came and went as they wished, had their characters do whatever they wanted, and attempted to enjoy the moments. It was entirely dysfunctional--a quiet philosophical discussion in the corner between a sorceress and a bartender was suddenly disrupted by a bar fight between a Conan look-alike and a Space Marine. No one was happy with this sort of play, but it happens all the time--in chat rooms, places where no one knows anyone and people come and go as they wish. You can't really establish a social contract in such an environment, because the participants are constantly in flux, and everyone acts based on his own decision of what he wants to have happen there without determining what the others are already attempting to do. If this is what is meant, I'll concede that it happens. Most of the people to whom it happens are not happy with it.

I will also argue that within that context there are people who are creating interactive play, and establishing a social contract between them in subgroups. If they were not, they probably wouldn't bother being in the chat room at all. Conan could create the space marine and describe to all of us how he cleaned the guy's plough, but since the rest of us aren't going to applaud him he should get bored and go away. The sorceress could have a philosophical discussion with a non-existent bartender, but unless she's doing it to make a point, essentially staging a play for others to observe, why would she? Perhaps she is producing her own drama; but she's not really role playing in that case. Perhaps she's trying to lure someone into her game, but in that case this is game prep, really--she doesn't want to play alone, she just thinks that the best way to attract like-minded players is to start doing what she wants to do and hope someone joins in.

But let me look at Real Role Playing Games, and see what features of what Doc describes I can find in those I know.

Multiverser is one of the most player-independent games I know. Each player really is in his own little world, doing his own thing--quite literally, most of the time, each player character is creating his own story in his own world. Yet the game has a tremendous amount of structure, more often than not. The referee holds most of the credibility for what happens in the world most of the time. (There is a chance--about one in a thousand--that a certain die roll will allow the player to describe the best possible outcome of a situation, but even this passes through the referee's filter.) Many, even most, of the scenarios most people run have solid structure, unavoidable facts. The skill system is rather intricately constructed to determine what is possible in the current world. Most of the time, players are spectators in each other's worlds.

Legends of Alyria is one of the least structured game systems I know. There are no skills. Three attributes, a virtue rating, and some non-specific number of traits define the a character's effectiveness. Players have the power to define the geography of the world at will--at any moment, a player could say, "My character has just decided to seek refuge at a village which she sees ahead at the bottom of the hill" or "I find that I have reached the Sea of Mist, and have no more running room" or "The place I need to be right now is the Ark, which fortunately is only one day's journey from here". Yet it also strongly demands (facilitates is too weak a word) that the players interact and that their characters interact. Independent character play is virtually impossible in the Legends of Alyria system--you can't actually roll to do anything unless you are opposed by another player's character. The game is about interactive play, precisely because of the way it is structured.

There is a traditional approach to play in which a referee decides everything that is happening in the world and the players work together through characters working together to explore within that created framework. There are a lot of divergencies from that model. Multiverser and Legends of Alyria are just two, very different, such divergencies. Universalis is yet another. Other games here represent other divergencies.

Sure, if you took all the elements of player independence in Multiverser and combined them with all the elements of player independence in Legends of Alyria plus all the elements of player independence in Universalis, you would probably approach the sort of completely independent play that seems to be described here--but by letting the varying forms of independence cancel out the varying forms of structure retained or redefined, you're left with half a dozen people sitting in the same room describing their daydreams to each other.

I suppose it's entirely possible that the confusion has arisen precisely from this aspect of what we do. If you say you are designing a game that has some element of traditional structure in it, we'll ask why you're retaining that element. This creates the impression that we think you should eliminate all traditional elements of structure. That is not at all what we mean. We mean you should retain those elements of structure that best suit your design objectives, revise those that will do so better if modified, and eliminate those which obstruct. Multiverser eliminates the party concept and the belief that player characters have to be together. Alyria eliminates the concept that the world has to have a map. Universalis eliminates the concept that one person gets to define the bulk of the world. No game eliminates all structure, and no one really plays like that. Even freeformers are bound by the Lumpley Principle.

And to reiterate, the essence of the Lumpley Principle is that whatever means are used to create agreement between the players on the content of the shared imaginary space, that is the system. Whether it's Rolemaster or Freeform, such a system always exists. Lumpley is a screen name identity of Vincent Baker, author of Kill Puppies for Satan and Matchmaker, who originally gave voice to this profoundly simple definition of system which has come to dominate discussion here at The Forge.

--M. J. Young

Also channelling some sort of moderator for just a moment - Doc Xero has replied in-thread rather than starting a new one, so since he's the thread-starter here - I guess continuing in-thread is just fine.

Operating on that assumption - Doc, that last post from you makes it a bit clearer to me what issues you're looking at. I think there are MANY angles and explanations about what you're calling the VoIND style. I'm going to think a bit about my personal angle, but one bit I'll throw out right now: for some people and/or from a certain perspective, there literally is NO fundamental difference between VoIND and VoINT as you describe them. Dealing with a secret passage created by the GM before hand or dealing with one created by a player at the time of play - eh, either way you're interacting with something that is created in the shared imagined space of the game. Just because the GM drew it on a map hours/days/weeks ago doesn't mean it's REAL - it's still just an imaginary creation that "exists" for the purpose of playing the game. Just like the one a player creates in Donjon.

Now, I don't mean to trivialize a preference for one over the other as a personal/group desire. Just because they are equivalent in some theoretical way does mean that the experience of playing will be the same for a particular group/individual in both cases. But I think for some folks, the realization that there IS this fundamental similarity is what lets them play Donjon-style with identical "immersion"* and "suspension of disbelief"* as you have in your GM-created situation.

[* on "immersion" and "suspension of disbelief" - here at the Forge, these phrases are widely regarded as not very useful in discussion. The best replacement I've heard of - from Ron, probably - is "engagement with the imagined characters/situation/events." Now, I *think* I know what you mean when you use those phrases, but if what YOU think you mean is wildly contrary to "engagement with the imagined charcaters/situation/events" (which, for some people, it is), that may become a stumbling block to discussions. Just a heads-up . . . . ]

Well, that's actually more than I was going to say before thinking about your most recent post in more depth, but - hopefully it's a START on addressing your question about "VoIND" play: some folks just don't see the distinction you are pointing to as a barrier to . . well, anything, really.

Gordon

Gordon C. Landis wrote: For some people and/or from a certain perspective, there literally is NO fundamental difference between VoIND and VoINT as you describe them. Dealing with a secret passage created by the GM before hand or dealing with one created by a player at the time of play - eh, either way you're interacting with something that is created in the shared imagined space of the game. Just because the GM drew it on a map hours/days/weeks ago doesn't mean it's REAL - it's still just an imaginary creation that "exists" for the purpose of playing the game. Just like the one a player creates in Donjon.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: * on "immersion" and "suspension of disbelief" - here at the Forge, these phrases are widely regarded as not very useful in discussion. The best replacement I've heard of - from Ron, probably - is "engagement with the imagined characters/situation/events." Now, I *think* I know what you mean when you use those phrases, but if what YOU think you mean is wildly contrary to "engagement with the imagined charcaters/situation/events" (which, for some people, it is), that may become a stumbling block to discussions.

John Kim wrote:
1) A paradigm of collaborative writing. This allows re-writing of past details, going backwards and forwards in fictional time. So the secret passage is never considered "real" until the story is published.

2) The storytelling paradigm suggests that once announced openly in play, the secret passage is considered "real".

3) The experiential paradigm suggests that the secret passage is considered "real" when the person who has authority over it is sure within her imagination that it is "real". Some things may require announcement and approval, but many things may not. For example, PC thoughts or beliefs could be validated by the player, while external world details could be validated by the GM. In troupe-style play, the world may be broken up into the authority of different players.

John Kim wrote:
An issue some people have with #2 is that this means that the game can in principle trample over people's individual imaginations at any time. Maybe I have thought of some cool background, and the addition of the secret passage means that the backstory I had thought of now makes no sense. Now I have to go back and rethink it all. Similarly, facts about my PC may be rewritten, forcing me to internally re-process my character.

Alan wrote: This is about the boundary issues I was talking about earlier - who gets to decide what. I think it's generally agreed that player character emotions, thoughts, intents, and motives should be under the sole command of the owning player.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: for some people and/or from a certain perspective, there literally is NO fundamental difference between VoIND and VoINT as you describe them. Dealing with a secret passage created by the GM before hand or dealing with one created by a player at the time of play - eh, either way you're interacting with something that is created in the shared imagined space of the game. Just because the GM drew it on a map hours/days/weeks ago doesn't mean it's REAL - it's still just an imaginary creation that "exists" for the purpose of playing the game.

John Kim wrote: Maybe I have thought of some cool background, and the addition of the secret passage means that the backstory I had thought of now makes no sense. Now I have to go back and rethink it all. Similarly, facts about my PC may be rewritten, forcing me to internally re-process my character.

The experiential paradigm means that you are trying to protect people's individual imaginations from this sort of clash or retcon.

Alan wrote: I've also noticed a general rule of "play it where it lies" in actual play. Once some element has been shared and accepted by the group it has great credibility, and will rarely be retconned. Instead, NEW facts entered into play must be consistent with it.

Retcon in these processes does occur: usually within seconds of a decision being made, much more rarely even five minutes later. A "fact" gains more weight as time passes. Exact useage of retcon varies some according to social contract, but I've never seen a game where existing "facts" are trampled over easily.

Doctor Xero wrote:
I'm more concerned about jumping across a chasm, almost killing myself, and then the next player declares he found a safe foot bridge. Unless my character is a complete moron, she would have seen the foot bridge instead of jumping almost to her death.

Doctor Xero wrote:
In a game set in LOTR, before I decide to interact with Lothlorien, I need to be assured that Lothlorien will not retroactively cease to exist.

Doctor Xero wrote:
Creative improvisation is easy, IMHO.

Doctor Xero wrote:
Identifying patterns, recognizing cultural and psychological tendencies, reading between the lines, listening to the silences between words -- those are all intriguing to me.

Hi,

Let's see if we can cut to the chase here.

Instead of everyone being obliged to disprove what I suspect is a non-existant negative, how about this:

Does anyone have any actual play or textual examples of the rules or play being used to Pooch Reality?

This seems to be one of Doc's greatest concerns with his VoInd thing..., and John backs him up that it would suck. And I agree it would suck. And I suspect retrofitting races mid-game and removing pre-established pieces of geography willy nilly would suck for everyone reading these boards.

So... Does it acutally happen in face to face play? Can anyone provide any actual examples, from actual play, actual text? Until then, we simply have to assume that this characiture of play simply doesn't exits and Doc's afraid of... nothing that actually happens.

There are other issues at hand here, but this seems to be the one getting the most attention and head-nodding from John and Doc, so let's address this first.

And let's be clear for the purposes of this exercise: Pooching Reality doesn't mean adding more detail (by whomever); it is the explicit negation of reality so far established, without rhyme or reason.

Anyone?

Christopher

Alan wrote:

John Kim wrote: 1) A paradigm of collaborative writing. This allows re-writing of past details, going backwards and forwards in fictional time. So the secret passage is never considered "real" until the story is published.

2) The storytelling paradigm suggests that once announced openly in play, the secret passage is considered "real".

3) The experiential paradigm suggests that the secret passage is considered "real" when the person who has authority over it is sure within her imagination that it is "real".

Your 1) and 3) don't ring true to me.

1) Collaborative Authoring. I've done collaborative writing and the "Secret passage" - or whatnot - comes into existance when one of the authors communicates it to the other one. It doesn't have to wait for publication. Once the two (or more) authors agree that something exists in a shared work, then it does.

3) Experiential paradigm. This sounds like the classic GM authority paradigm, where the GM knows the passage exists, but only reveals it when the players do something to find it.

Alan wrote: In fact, I would assert that, even in the most player-created worlds, there must be a solid foundation of situation/setting before meaningful play can begin. In some games, like Sorcerer, one spends the entire first session creating characters and agreeing on a framework of world and situation. This sort of thing is required and recognized.

I think that VoInd / VoInt is not a useful distinction for face-to-face roleplaying. All role-playing interacts with established fantasy material. And in face-to-face RPGs, all players must respect and interact with the creations of other players.

Alan wrote: This is about the boundary issues I was talking about earlier - who gets to decide what. I think it's generally agreed that player character emotions, thoughts, intents, and motives should be under the sole command of the owning player. Perhaps this is even a defining element of role-playing games.

Christopher Kubasik wrote: Does anyone have any actual play or textual examples of the rules or play being used to Pooch Reality?

This seems to be one of Doc's greatest concerns with his VoInd thing..., and John backs him up that it would suck. And I agree it would suck. And I suspect retrofitting races mid-game and removing pre-established pieces of geography willy nilly would suck for everyone reading these boards.

So... Does it acutally happen in face to face play? Can anyone provide any actual examples, from actual play, actual text?

John Kim wrote: I disagree. Take Pantheon (by Robin Laws, 2000) as a perfect example. There is zippo established material except the words "In the beginning, there was nothing." SOAP is pretty similar. Moreover, these also allow challenging of statements made.

Alan wrote:

John Kim wrote: This is about the boundary issues I was talking about earlier - who gets to decide what. I think it's generally agreed that player character emotions, thoughts, intents, and motives should be under the sole command of the owning player. Perhaps this is even a defining element of role-playing games.

Well, I tend to prefer that -- but it's not a universal by any means. Lots of RPGs for a long time have included personality and narration mechanics which can temporarily take the PC out of the control of the player, or put restrictions on it. You might check out Kirt Dankmyer's Unsung as a recent example.

John,

I do understand the difference. That's why I was very explicit to seperate out this one specific concern, Pooching Reality, from a lot of other concerns on the table here. When Doc says he's afraid hobbits are going to become gnomes, he's talking about Pooching Reality as I've defined the term. I'm asking for anyone to Step On Up and name it. (Doc may or may not arrive saying, "But that's the extreme case! Not anything I would actually expect to happen in a game!" In which case we can casully slide it off the table, forget about it, and never speak of it again -- moving on to whatever issues actually do occur in play.)

Now, I didn't realize *you* were making that explicit different from the post I read of yours were you created the dizzying and hypothetical example where the player created secret passage wiped out a fellow player's PC concept. I now know you meant that there was no way the secret passage creating player could now he was about to hit the delete button on his fellow player's character concepts -- because as of yet they hadn't been verbalized.

But, John, this is where the negotiation comes in. All moments in RPGs run this risk. That's why negoatiation is happening all the time. If we're in the fight, and someone thinks one thing about the availability of ditches, and someone thinks another -- well... It's got to be worked out. I mean... That's just part of the hobby. As you yourself pointed out, there is no reality to work from -- even if there's only a GM spitting it out, peopel at the table are still going to have to work it out as the go. So you're trying to set up an end run around an activity which is one of the primary activities of RPGS -- definding a shared reality.

Finally, I think Alan is right. I had been thinking the same thing about the Gamist element of Donjon, but wasn't familiar with the other games mentioned. I think some games use the improvisation of reality as part of a spirited, competative play. (I'd add Baron Munchausen to the mix.) But the very nature of the games isn't to provide a solid-state reality. No, such games don't allow Doc to expereince the "silence between the words," or whatnot. But that's not their point. Neither is their point to steamroll over what has been established (Munchausen is explicit in this point). The goal is to *win*, using improvisation, if you will, as a resource to win. (Note again, that Pooching Reality, as Doc is concerned about it, isn't a part of these games.)

So what Doc seems to have come up with is a lable for gamist games where everyone uses additional elements of reality to drive their play toward victgory. There's no overwriting of shared reality. And it has nothing to do with Sim or Nar styles, and so his nightmare concerns are not at all applicible to the kinds of games he likes. This style of playing also has nothing explicitely to do with games where players get to add in details on the fly in Sim and Nar games, and most Gamist games. It's a very specific, narrow and unique form of play -- and if this style of play is introducted into others styles of play it pretty much ruins them. Which is why it rarely happens, and if it does happen, everyone walks away quickly feeling icky.

Finally, he asked why anyone might like such a game. I think I now have the answer.

If all the preceding is correct (and it seems damned fine to me), the answer is simple -- but tricky. The best example I can give is this: the bard/magician contest where the two competitors shapeshift with words or actual form, competing to see who can find the right object/animal to overpower his opponent.

I'd offer that this kind of delight is exactly the kind of delight found in these kinds of games -- imagination cut loose, but still fettered by logic and rules of what has come before.

Again, these kinds of games (Donjon, Munchausen) have *nothing at all to do* with building a Sim environment, or the veneer of reality needed for Nar play. If such Sim games are "infected" by this style of play, most folks would balk, realize the whole thing had gone terribly amok, and, I hope, calmly put the brakes on it.

So, Doc. How's that? The fun is in the aspect of the bard/magician contest. It's a Gamsit strategy, meaning that people are using improvisation the way people use money in Monopoly in order to move their way to victory. And these kinds of techniques have nothing at all to do with Sim or Nar games, (like HeroQuest, Sorcerer, The Pool), and even most Gamist games (D&D, Age of Heroes and more), where improvisation as tool for victory isn't on the table.

It's a very, very narrow and specific type of play, for a very specific mode of play (gamist). And while one could (and probably should) start a whole new thread about whether or not players should be adding to reality alongside the GM and the problems of "consistant" reality, I think the concerns about a kind of "competing" reality have been answered in this post. Yes, it exists, in very specific kinds of games, but not all games where players add in reality are these kinds of games.

Yes?

Christopher

John Kim wrote:

Christopher Kubasik wrote: Does anyone have any actual play or textual examples of the rules or play being used to Pooch Reality?...

I think you're not quite understanding the difference. You are talking about retro-fitting of statements which have been verbalized and clearly negotiated among everyone at the table. i.e. For you, anything which hasn't gone through this process isn't "reality" and thus can freely be "pooched". But that's just based on one paradigm's view of what "reality" is. In truth, none of this is physically real.

For the experiential paradigm, the issue is retro-fitting of one's own mental image. It is what is in people's heads that matters, not what is spoken. i.e. I had pictured X in my mind's eye, but then something is declared which contradicts that and I have to retro-fit in Y. In my experience, this happens all the time. For example, I find that without a map, combat is generally full of little shufflings about and renegotiations.

Liz: OK, I'm going to tackle Dot to drop us both into cover.
John: Wait, what cover? The reason why I was fighting maniacally was because I thought there was no cover.
Liz: Can't there be a ditch nearby that we could flatten ourselves into? It seems reasonable that there'd be something there for irrigation.
...

Even given the same description, everyone will picture things slightly (or even majorly) differently. Thus, people's imaginings are constantly clashing and being re-formed based on communication. It happens on a small level constantly, and happens on a more major level pretty often. More deep and detailed imagination is on one level good -- but this inevitably means that there will be more clashes and negotiation.

Hi Walt,

I, too, had a bit of trouble wrapping my head around Independent and Interactive as useful labels. But, given my last post, it seems to me what Doc had intuitively picked up on was a Gamist agenda -- the act of improvisation in Donjon or Munchausen is *more* "independent" than, say in a game of Sorcerer or AD&D.

The fact that Doc wanted to know why anyone would want to play this way in a game with a presumed consistent and *cooperative* reality is where everyone kept getting whiplashes reading his posts -- no one would want to play that way with most games. That's why there are very distinct kinds of games to handle The Bard's Game Style Play (tm).

I think I now see where Doc's coming from. But I also hardly see this as the "This / Or This" split he started at the top of the thread. As far as I can tell, this is a tiny option among many, many options of ways of playing -- and for reasons noted in my last post -- having fun.

Christopher

I think there is something to the distinction made initially though it is horribly labelled. As has been pointed out interactive and independant dont really fit the bill because to be socially functionally all games must be interactive. However there are two different modes of play that seem to be related to but not directly linked to any GNS mode and not really at the creative agenda level. The best terms I can think of to describe the modes would be proactive and reactive.


Someone playing in the proactive mode would be someone who wants to be creating the elements of the story as the game goes along. There are a lot of narrativist tools that do this but its not directly linked because Donjon and other gamist games have used them as well.

Someone playing in the reactive mode would be reacting to a precreated world and/or plotline as is typical in the one gm multiple player roots of rpg's. Again this stretches the gamut of gns modes because it can occur in vanilla nar, definitely sim, and gamism.

From my experience there are people who fit into both seperate categories. Even with experience in narrativist games some people just dont like, dont want to, or cant be bothered to put in the effort to create story during play, they'd rather just react to what the gm has created.

Of course I'd have to add the caveat that it's unlikely that anyone is purely one or the other so that it's not unreasonable that someone who prefers to react would like to have a situation that interests them come up in the game.

I was going to respond with a lot of quotes, but really, I think it will be both more respectful and more to-the-point if I simply make some comments.

Thank you all for the postings. I now have the answers to my questions -- I think. Let me explain and then correct me if you disagree.

But first, three repeated misperceptions have been obscuring what might otherwise have been a more straightforward discussion, and I would ask everyone to make an effort not to repeat those misperceptions again.
First, as I wrote in my very first posting, I was establishing VoINT and VoIND as extreme ends of a spectrum -- with the implied hope that people more experienced with DonJon and such could help me understand the less extreme games since the polar parameters had been set.
Second, as I explained earlier, I had chosen the term "interactive" because that is the term we use in literature studies for what I have been describing about the relationship between reader and text. I have not once intended VoINT to refer to player-to-player interaction, only to player-to-text interaction (except when the latter influences the former). This confusion makes me eager for a Forge lexicon ; the idea that this definition of "interaction" might be particular to literary studies honestly never occurred to me.
Finally, I have not been attacking VoIND play -- I have been presenting examples of VoIND and VoINT in the sole hope that people would use these as springboards for explanation. I enjoy VoINT play but would like to try out VoIND play. However, I realize that I do not yet know the proper mindset to play and I do not yet know the proper mindset to avoid dysfunctional VoIND groups. I had hoped to learn those mindsets from The Forge participants as well.

With that out of the way . . .

Alan mentioned something about not being able to play tennis without a net first. I know where to look for a net in a VoINT game -- the game master handouts and such, and if I forget where the net is, I can always ask her or him. I know how to interact with the net in a VoINT game. What I wanted to know was how to find the net in a VoIND game. The VoIND games I've read seemed to imply that the net is woven strand by strand throughout the game, and it reminded me of a time I played tennis with a friend using a netless court : we imagined where the net was, and we had a great deal of fun arguing over whether the volley would have cleared that imaginary net, but we were not really playing tennis. Just as we were not playing authentic chess that time we decided to alter the functions of the pieces according to die rolls.

If I understand the posts here, VoIND games still have a net -- they establish the basic parameters via group consensus on the spot rather than asking one person to establish it ahead of time. The rest is negotiated or improvised as the games are played out, something which happens in most RPGs it seems to me.

Alan and Chris also brought up two things I hadn't considered. They're right.

The online VoIND and convention VoIND games I've experienced involved people with no connection with each other outside the game of the moment, so there was less social contract for player-to-player support and cooperation.

More importantly, now that I think about it, I realize those convention sessions were gamist -- but when I had been asked to join, I had been lead to expect simulationist and/or narrativist (although I'd never heard of the G/N/S terms at the time). I've been trying to understand how to play the Lord of the Rings using DonJon and Fungeon, and the answer is not that I'm missing something -- it's that no one uses DonJon or Fungeon to play epic fantasy tragedy or such.

Some critics have noted that, in The Professor's LOTR epic, the world itself is a character in its own right, in some ways more so a character than some of the elves or humans. (Critics have said the same thing about the Enterprise in Classic Trek.) So in a game, changing the world in LOTR would be like changing a player-character. RPGs such as DonJon and Fungeon have dungeons which are merely playing spaces or pallettes for the imagination, not characters.

Chris had mentioned magical battles. This fits in with an insight from a friend of mine. I was reading to a fellow grad student some of the postings on this topic, noting with frustration that I could think of no RPG which seems to be both VoINT and VoIND. He then said to me something like, "Doesn't that describe that Mage game you told me about?"

I once watched (but never got to play in) over several weeks a series of wonderful Mage games which began with a game master and a firmly established setting for the players to use as springboards for their characters (i.e. Vision of Interaction). The players were not into power trips or such, so the game master could trust them with a great deal of latitude. As their characters become more powerful, they were able to have secret doors appear where they had not or such -- the gameworld become malleable -- and players established areas of mutable reality not unlike dream-time in Changeling (i.e. Vision of Independence). As the mutability of the world increased, the game master became more and more a rules referee and fellow player and less the director(?) or author(?).

Have I got it?

Doctor Xero

P.S. Thank you for your insights, and I apologize for my part in any confusions apropos this subject.

P.P.S. I enjoy expressing creativity, but I reserve my original creativity for the stories I write and hope someday to publish. My gaming is where I express my creative impulses which would not work for my professional efforts. I think of gaming and writing in the same way that Victor Buono described the campy 1960s Batman series and working in theatre: in theatre (for me, writing) he was an artist, but in Batman (for me, gaming) he got to have fun being a ham, the secret vice of any actor! <laughter>

P.P.P.S. I will steadfastly defend the legitimacy of the term "interaction" as I have used it when it comes to literary studies. However, that is apparently not the term to use in game studies nor on The Forge. What is the accepted term here for the reader-to-text relationship which we call "interactive" in literary studies?

Doctor Xero wrote: . I will steadfastly defend the legitimacy of the term "interaction" as I have used it when it comes to literary studies. However, that is apparently not the term to use in game studies nor on The Forge. What is the accepted term here for the reader-to-text relationship which we call "interactive" in literary studies?

Hi Doc,

You wrote:

"I've been trying to understand how to play the Lord of the Rings using DonJon and Fungeon, and the answer is not that I'm missing something -- it's that no one uses DonJon or Fungeon to play epic fantasy tragedy or such."

I think that's pretty much it right there. Or if they do, it's gonna be one weird ass version of the normal "fantasy campaign."

For myself, before I take off, I just want to be clear that Bardic Competition example I gave wasn't meant to be an analogy for "in game" magic, but a metaphor for the fun had while building reality as you go, often in a competative manner. It's not just wizards using magic in the game, but the *players* using the magic of language, on the fly, in clever and creative ways.

The fun, of course, is that there's always a net. In the "literalized" version of the bardic competition, one man becomes seed to avoid being spotted by the hound, and then the hound becomes a chicken, because we know chicken pick up seeds with their beaks.

Not that you didn't understand all of this, or imply it some way. But I want to be clear about this. You asked about the fun of playing in something along the lines that you're calling VoIND. And it's not just a matter of "in game" logic. It is the fun of competing with the other players, riffing with language to build on what has come before to your own advantage.

Good luck with your gaming,

Christopher

Hi Doc,

I've always understood that you mean interaction with "text." In fact, I've found it frustrating that you don't seem to understand that the "text" in a role-playing game is the agreed on content of the shared fantasy, not what the GM plans or the content of some published setting. When a GM hands out information, or explains the setting, he's just entering material into the "text." His material is not the "text." Traditionally, this has been a major roleof the GM, but the process is no different if players are given the right to enter material into text - or to object or negotiate the entries of others.

So the simple answer to your question is that, in a game where players have the broad ability to create content, they interact with content already created. In an extreme case, they may even start by putting up the net, but once that's done, they play over it.

This is also why worries about "pooching reality" are bogus - because players do interact with the "text" and revisions can only be made with the agreement of the other players.

For these reasons, the distingtion interaction vs. independant is meaningless, because, as you can see, all role-playing requires interaction with the "text."

Alan wrote: Hi Doc,

So the simple answer to your question is that, in a game where players have the broad ability to create content, they interact with content already created. In an extreme case, they may even start by putting up the net, but once that's done, they play over it.

This is also why worries about "pooching reality" are bogus - because players do interact with the "text" and revisions can only be made with the agreement of the other players.

For these reasons, the distingtion interaction vs. independant is meaningless, because, as you can see, all role-playing requires interaction with the "text."

Caldis wrote: I do feel their is a real disconnect between those who are willing to put up the net themselves and those who expect the gm to do it for them. In play I've run into many people who prefer to hang back and react to whatever situation comes to them rather than trying to create situations themselves. I've seen many posts here about gms trying to go 'narrativist' and get the players involved in creating the 'text' and running into a brick wall when the players say that's the gm's job.

Alan wrote:

I just had a brainstorm and I don't know why I didn't think of it before. This is all about Director stance! Doc's distinction between VoInt and VoInd and your distinction between players who like to add content and those who don't - it's all about player use of Director stance.

Ahh, bang you nailed it again. I hadnt thought of it in terms of stance either but that is exactly what it is. Thanks for the clarification.

Caldis wrote: However I do feel their is a real disconnect between those who are willing to put up the net themselves and those who expect the gm to do it for them. In play I've run into many people who prefer to hang back and react to whatever situation comes to them rather than trying to create situations themselves.

Chris :

Thank you for your insights and for confirming that I've got it.

Alan and Caldis :

No, I'm afraid you still don't get it. You have treated VoINT as signatory of laziness or a disinterest in full participation. That's not only insulting, it misses the point.

I will try one last time to explain it.

There's a game in "Whose Line is it Anyway?" in which two pairs of comedians are each handed a random prop, such as a broom to one and a hula hoop to the other. They take turns seeing who can most cleverly utilize his/her team's prop. They are demonstrating their creativity at utilizing what they have been given. They are interacting with those props! Similarly, at some conventions there is a game in which people compete to ad lib filked songs to popular tunes -- again, a highly creative demonstration of their ability to interact with the pre-existing tune! In the same way, a battle of wits in which competitors take turns insulting each other in doggerel or iambic pentameter is a test of their ability to creatively interact with the rhyme scheme and cadence. ALL of these are parallels to Vision of Interaction approaches!

In a Vision of Independence approach to the "text", the two pairs of comedians would first build their props or the teams would build one prop together and then compete at ad libbing off it. They are also demonstrating creativity, but it is a creativity arising independently from their environment -- they didn't demonstrate how cleverly they could utilize what is there, they demonstrated how cleverly they could manufacture something there. Similarly, rather than competing to see who can reuse a popular tune, a VoIND person would create a new tune wholesale. That is also creative, but it is a different flavor of creativity.

Some of the university artists will take clay and sculpt something beautiful out of it or take a palette and oil paints and paint something delightful on it, and that would be an expression of Vision of Independence creavitity.

Some of the university artists will visit the trash bins, find items thrown away, and ask themselves, "How can I reclaim this discard? How can I redeem or rework this?" Their wondrous works of art from the reuse and rework of what is already there would be an expression of Vision of Interaction creativity.

There is no laziness nor passivity involved in reclaiming, reworking, reusing, redeeming. Vision of Interaction creavity is no less involved and no less active than Vision of Independence creativity.

Yes, they are both expressions of creativity, and yes, they both include personal involvement and may well include the involvement of others, as co-creators or as audience, but they are not identical.

As I written many times before, I think of VoINT and VoIND as the poles of a spectrum along which most RPGs can be found.

In literature studies, relating to and being inspired by something, such as the already-written text, is called "interactive" and has been for many, many years. Taking a blank notebook and writing in it is "independent" not interactive. You may not like the terminology, but it's the terminology that is used. The Forge has specialized terms, such as its use of Narrativist ; literature studies have theirs as well, such as "interaction" to refer to VoINT but not to VoIND. Simply going on out of dislike of my terminology would be a petty semantic dispute. This thread has gone on long enough that simply arguing over semantics would be a waste of Forge time.

If you haven't gotten it now, I don't think you want to, so I think any further discussion would be a waste of Forge time.

Everyone else :

Thank you for your time on this topic. You have all helped me immensely in my understanding of VoINT and VoIND play. I think I can now read about it and perhaps even play it or even design it competently.

If no one genuinely objects, I would like to consider this thread closed now, please.

Doctor Xero

Doctor Xero wrote:
Alan and Caldis :

No, I'm afraid you still don't get it. You have treated VoINT as signatory of laziness or a disinterest in full participation. That's not only insulting, it misses the point.

If no one genuinely objects, I would like to consider this thread closed now, please.

Doctor Xero wrote:

Caldis wrote: However I do feel their is a real disconnect between those who are willing to put up the net themselves and those who expect the gm to do it for them. In play I've run into many people who prefer to hang back and react to whatever situation comes to them rather than trying to create situations themselves.

Chris :

You once asked me for examples of posters who have insulted the sorts of play about which I write, with implications of laziness or immaturity. The most recent posts by Caldis and Alan should suffice as examples.

Doctor Xero

John Kim wrote: 1) A paradigm of collaborative writing. This allows re-writing of past details, going backwards and forwards in fictional time. So the secret passage is never considered "real" until the story is published.

2) The storytelling paradigm suggests that once announced openly in play, the secret passage is considered "real".

3) The experiential paradigm suggests that the secret passage is considered "real" when the person who has authority over it is sure within her imagination that it is "real". Some things may require announcement and approval, but many things may not. For example, PC thoughts or beliefs could be validated by the player, while external world details could be validated by the GM. In troupe-style play, the world may be broken up into the authority of different players.

Alan B. wrote: I've done collaborative writing and the "Secret passage" - or whatnot - comes into existance when one of the authors communicates it to the other one. It doesn't have to wait for publication. Once the two (or more) authors agree that something exists in a shared work, then it does....

It's best to assume that nothing exists in the external world of the shared fantasy until it's communicated to the players, then agreed on - either tacitly or through some formal system.

Alan B. later wrote:

Doctor Xero wrote: I'm more concerned about jumping across a chasm, almost killing myself, and then the next player declares he found a safe foot bridge. Unless my character is a complete moron, she would have seen the foot bridge instead of jumping almost to her death.

You forget, once again, that all face-to-face role-playing involves group negotiation. If I were in that situation, I would challenge that on the "Play it where it lies" principle for just the reasons you mention. The other player has to acknowledge that the crossing is difficult, or come up with a damn good explaination that doesn't belittle my character.

Walt Freitag wrote: improvising (which, I'll warn Doc Xero, is something many GMs do a lot even in -- or especially in -- completely traditionally structured games)

Doctor Xero wrote: Second, as I explained earlier, I had chosen the term "interactive" because that is the term we use in literature studies for what I have been describing about the relationship between reader and text. I have not once intended VoINT to refer to player-to-player interaction, only to player-to-text interaction (except when the latter influences the former).

Doctor Xero wrote: In literature studies, relating to and being inspired by something, such as the already-written text, is called "interactive" and has been for many, many years.

Doctor Xero wrote: I have not once intended VoINT to refer to player-to-player interaction, only to player-to-text interaction (except when the latter influences the former).

Caldis wrote: I do think you've missed Alans' excellent points that there is no independant action in a roleplaying game, that it's all interactive and the only question is who brings the elements that are interacted with, the gm or the players.

Doctor Xero wrote: as I wrote in my very first posting, I was establishing VoINT and VoIND as extreme ends of a spectrum -- with the implied hope that people more experienced with DonJon and such could help me understand the less extreme games since the polar parameters had been set.

Doctor Xero wrote: Simply going on out of dislike of my terminology would be a petty semantic dispute.

Caldis wrote: If you've found an insult in what I have written then my apologies, I did not intend any. It was poor wording on my part and not meant to denigrate any play style.

EDIT: computer hiccough removed

Doctor Xero -- I think you have some very good points here. However, those who do want to talk about this may be confused by your having declared the thread closed and then adding more to the debate.

As a suggestion: Having declared the thread closed, I think you should stick to that, and instead open a new one to continue. Could you start another topic thread, which specifies that you are talking about player-to-text interactivity, and includes the points quoted below?

Doctor Xero wrote: If the player brings it, it is not pre-existing, and therefore there can be no interaction with any pre-existing structure if the structure is brought by the players. There is nothing physically or notionally with which to interact if people sit down at a table and say, "Okay, what do we want to be here?", and therefore since there is nothing with which to interact, their actions must be grounded independently of the non-pre-existent structures. It makes no sense to claim otherwise, so if Alan's points are excellent, they must be about something other than VoINT and VoIND since it would be absurd for him to claim interaction where there is none.

The difference between player-to-pre-existing-structure interactivity (VoINT) and player-to-structure construction (VoIND) is an absurdly obvious point if you've read what I've written.