Topic: Reminder: Credibility
Started by: lumpley
Started on: 7/27/2004
Board: RPG Theory
On 7/27/2004 at 8:00pm, lumpley wrote:
Reminder: Credibility
Assent underlies each moment of play. At each moment of play, if any single player doesn't fully assent to the imagined events of the game, play stops and the group deals with it. This is universally true across roleplaying - "the group deals with it" is extremely broad.
People don't have or hold credibility.
People give credibility to statements about what's happening in the game, by assenting or withholding their assent.
What makes a statement about what happens in your game credible, to you its players?
Answer that and you've identified your game's System.
System, thus, is the process by which the group negotiates the imaginary events of the game. It's the process by which the group determines which statements about what happens in the game to assent to. It's the process of apportioning credibility. It's who gets to credibly say what about what.
Vincent's Standard Rant: Power, Credibility and Assent
The Lumpley Principle Goes Wading
-Vincent
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On 7/27/2004 at 8:50pm, Christopher Weeks wrote:
RE: Reminder: Credibility
It seems like all the statements in the above note direct us away from credibility being about who until the very last one.
What I want to know is if the last sentence:
Vincent wrote: [System is] who gets to credibly say what about what.
is actually dissonant with the rest of it or if I'm misreading something.
I would have thought that the bulk of the post was leading up to a statement more like:
no one wrote: It's what gets credibly stated (or accepted?) about what, when.
Chris
On 7/27/2004 at 9:16pm, lumpley wrote:
RE: Reminder: Credibility
Chris, I include "who" because assent to a statement can certainly depend on who says it. I'm sure you've played games where the dice hit the table, everybody can see them, everybody knows what they mean, and everybody turns to look at the GM.
You've probably also played games where it doesn't matter who says it. Then, the answer to "does that player get to decide that?" is "sure."
The "when" in System is always "right now."
-Vincent
On 7/28/2004 at 12:41am, Noon wrote:
RE: Reminder: Credibility
At each moment of play, if any single player doesn't fully assent to the imagined events of the game, play stops and the group deals with it. This is universally true across roleplaying - "the group deals with it" is extremely broad.
That dealing with it and it's broadness thing. The broadness would includes thinking 'Ah, jimmy doesn't look happy, eh, lets just press on, I'm sure he'll get back into it latter', wouldn't it?
It's just the 'play stops' doesn't seem realistic. Usually what you get is sort of like internet 'lag' between video game participants. If the RP gamers assent drops they begin to lag as their IS doesn't integrate properly with the SIS (much like slow internet game data starts to fail to integrate with the other gamers and you get clashing effects). And the analogy fits nicely that with too much lag you drop out entirely "WTF are we doing here?"
Just curious. Personally I see each player as an island ('every man is an island' sort of thing). The recieve things from each other via the senses and mentally can respond to such senses. What I'm trying to describe here is that there is no real shared object as there is no real connection between participants. Just stimulous being interpreted. It's only when continuing sequences of stimulous keeps making some degree of sense to a participant that he can think he is contributing to something shared. Really its more like independant paralel development, sparked a great deal by stimulous. Note: The reason I keep using the word stimulous is that language, for example, is crude and bumbling. It can't really be expected to support a solid connection, just like you wouldn't expect pantomime to support a solid connection.