In far distant Actual Play, Ron says

So here I am, Narrativist player, "playing my character." Do I think, "What would he do?" Sure I do! In my case, the question serves the purposes of the underlying player priority of getting a great story made about this guy; why ever in the world would I permit violating "him"? That would defeat the purpose… Sacrificing the integrity of [character decisions, conflict resolutions, and the authors’ commitment to the issue] makes a worse story, not a better one. Rather, the integrity of these things are utilized, up-front, to produce a story (as just described) as the shared end.

Pretty much OK by me, Vince ... except for one teeny li'l thing that will probably cause a big shitstorm once I say it.

To wit: abandon all reference to Suspension of Disbelief.

I have always found this term to be meaningless for any discussion of media or activity. At best, it stands in for a variety of other, more concrete things (e.g. "interest," "engagement," "commitment," "attention"), and at worst, it's one of those horrible terms that takes over a discussion such that no one has any idea of the actual issue being debated.

To discuss what "Suspension of Disbelief" is, one must first have a notion of what "Disbelief" is, and to do that, one must first have a notion of what "Belief" is. Let's see, I'm watching a movie or playing an RPG, and I "believe" first, then "disbelieve," and then "suspend the disbelief" ...? Bullshit. Nothing but entrenched-by-bad-teaching, entrenched-by-poser-handwaving bullshit.

When anyone uses the term regarding (say) role-playing, I ask a few questions, and I find that all they mean, usually, is simply that the person involved is (a) imaginatively engaged, (b) paying attention, and (c) contributing. That's all. Hell, I call that nothing but (a) imaginatively engaged, (b) paying attention, and (c) contributing. No weird cognitive twisty believe/disbelieve/suspend process necessary.

[Anyone interested in this issue relative to cinema should check out Noel Carroll's Mystifying Movies and Carol Clover's Men Women and Chainsaws, both of which provide excellent, academically-solid, powerful arguments against the traditional mode (ie infantilized, dream-state, suspended-disbelief) of describing an audience member's interaction with a film.]

Best,
Ron

Vincent,

I agree completely--and Ron does as well. In practice though (here) it's often not presented that way. This is from a recent thread:

First of all one of the keys to Narrativism is the focus on real human issues be they concrete, Mother-Daughter Relationships, or more abstract, Honor.

Nope, no shitstorm over here. Engaged, attentive, contributing it is.

But then I always was a bandwagon-jumper when it came to terminology. (Witness me picking up SoD from Simulationism-of-old.)

However, I do have definite experience of things sometimes breaking my -- something. Willingness to go on if that's indeed true, call it. Things that make me go "Huh? No way in hell."

Oh, of course, they're times when the group consensus isn't working, that's what they are. One of the other players draws conclusions incompatible with mine, introduces something into the game that I can't accomodate, bang! That's what I mean.

I don't imagine that you're denying the existence of that kind of breakdown, only the validity of the term.

-Vincent

Marco,

In defense of Jesse's point, I submit that he is using "focus" to mean, specifically, the priority of play, and "real human issue" to indicate that something is up that the people at the table would like to address, via their characters, in addition to (and more important than) something that the characters, in their fictional reality, must address. It might interest you to know that Jesse, a year ago, presented extensive arguments and protests on the Gaming Outpost about many of the same issues that you often bring up now.

"Also: If you break Exploration of [story elements] out of Simulationism, what's left? Under GDS it's an emphasis on results being consisent with some established reality--but that isn't the case under GNS. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding this."

It's really hard for me to understand your question. What do you mean, actually, by "breaking Exploration of [story elements] out of Simulationism?" If by "[story elements]" you are referring to Character, System, Situation, Color, and Setting, I do not consider these things in Part One of the essay to be "story elements" but "components of Exploration." The difference is huge; those things may be story elements, but they do not have to be. Also, what you describe as "emphasis on results being consistent with some established reality" - if by "emphasis" you mean "priority" - is a perfectly reasonable description of my definition of Simulationist play, especially if "established reality" can take on many meanings, from character psychology to physics or metaphysics-of-magic, or whatever.

You may be confounding "stuff happening in play" with Story. A story is not an element of Narrativist play; it is a goal of play - a distinctive object with distinctive qualities that may occur or result from whatever-is-done with elements such as character, setting, and situation. Simulationism, by my definition, refers to modes of play in which creating that particular sort of object is not the goal. All the

are still there; the difference is what the group or person is doing with them and what for.

Best,
Ron

Hi Ron,

It may be that Jesse made the same arguments--and that I haven't made the cognitive leap yet.

1. If the stuff that happens is primiarily series of scenes envisioned by the GM (maybe plus or minus a few depending on player actions) isn't that the GM's story? It sure feels (when I'm the GM) like writing a story.

2. If the players and the GM, when deciding what to do choose to participate in a game that appeals to their issues (and consider those issues when making their characters)--but includes no narrativist mechanics and the the players are generally committed to being "in character" isn't that exploration of situation that that appeals to real human issues?

3. Looking at The Window as a simulation of some reality will render it broke. Looking at it as a system that lets you explore situations (defined by the GM) while staying in-character makes it almost perfect (there are no mechanics to get in the way of the GM creating events and outcomes).

-Marco
[ Note: I'm not saying that narrativism is the same as simulationism in aims and methods I'm just saying that the points people are talking about aren't where the differences lie.

Narrativist Premise: Is Love worth death? (answered by the player in the "creation of a story.")

Simulationist Premise: What is it like to be faced with the choice of Love over Death? (answered during play as the player works to stay in character).

Compare to:
Simulationist Premise: What is it like to be a Vampire? ]

-Marco

Ron Edwards wrote:
Pretty much OK by me, Vince ... except for one teeny li'l thing that will probably cause a big shitstorm once I say it.

To wit: abandon all reference to Suspension of Disbelief.

..

..

Hmm - we seem to see a lot of pricklishness to SOD without any real explanation as to how else to describe the experience. I don't like the deconstruction much; we are not trying to get the audience to believe that this is real, but to suspend their knowledge that it is not and thus identify with the situation and the protagonists. (Although incidentally, movies in the pseudo-documentary style make a much greater effort in this direction - honourable mention goes to '84 Charlie MOPIC', which I found succeeded in FULLY supending audience disbelief to the point that you had to consciously remind yourself that it was a work of fiction). I don't think "imaginative investment" really captures this concept for me; perhaps it is a form of imaginative investment, but I don;t think the term really conveys the specific of the act - internalising a fictional situation as real within certain limmited but usually conscious bounds.

I gotta agree with CC on this one. The term has always worked for me, and I never ascribed to it any of the ludicrousness that some of the above comments do.

I dont' expect to believe that I'm on a planet surrounded by alien bugs when watching Starship Troopers. I do expect that the elite mobile infantry troopers behave like elite mobile infantry troopers and not a rioting mob. I do expect that naval captains can keep their ships from colliding with each other as a prerequisite of being given command in the first place.

These things (as the MIA John Wick once said) serve to "snap my disbelief suspenders".

When things work the way they are supposed to work and the movie / novel / TV show / or RPing session is plausible then SoD has been achieved. When there are jarring nonsequitors, segues that don't follow, and scenes that aren't "true to themselves", then SoD has not been achieved.

Its really as simple as that.

SoD is a perfectly acceptable/descriptive term for me (in terms of RPGs - I'm not cinema-crit-savvy enough to comment on its' applicability in movies), though I agree with/understand folks who are upset with the excesses to which it might sometimes be used. In particular, it's important to realize (as I recall John Wick did in his "snapping the disbelief suspenders" description) that what breaks SoD for some folks is no big deal for others.

My main thought, though, aligns with Gareth - if you want to get rid of SoD, you need to give me something to replace it with, and 'imaginitive engagement' is not sufficiently precise. There is a specific kind of issue that SoD describes. For example, I have a bit of concern about the kind of Authorial power demonstrated by, oh, the example of a crane dropping something on the villian. The player invents that, it's a cool effect, it serves the story - great! But a little earlier, we had someone trapped under a bunch of steel pipes, and had to summon a demon to get 'em off of him . . . where was the crane then? I could've avoided my demon-summoning if we had a CRANE!

Obviously, there's lots of ways to handle this kind of thing, from the group agreeing to ignore such little inconsistencies in the name of a good story, to appropriate GM intervention, or . . . hmm, an interesting toipic for another thread - what are good Narrativist techniques (Vincent caveat's about the term taken) to avoid this kind of problem?

But my point is - breaking SoD (or snapping my disbelief suspenders) describes, rather precisely, why the "crane situation" might be a problem. If you want me to stop using SoD, I'm gonna need another way to describe that.

Gordon

Gordon,

The term you're looking for, I think, is "integrity." It is the aesthetic satisfaction of the imagined circumstances, which are a little complex in role-playing because proposal and establishment of "what happens" are negotiated rather than presented as a unit.

For Gamist play, it's the integrity of the contest; for Simulationist play, it's the integrity of the imagined causality; for Narrativist play, it's the integrity of the formal narrative content (ie Premise in Egri's terms).

Elements of that integrity vary greatly within the modes and overlap greatly among the modes - that's why people get so squinty and upset when they try to figure out whether "consistency" matters, or try to confine it to one of the modes (ie Simulationism).

I contend that group commitment to this integrity, coupled with the "imaginative engagement," is the actual venue of role-playing, much as a screen and a darkened room are the venue of cinema, or a page of some kind is the venue of literature/fiction. I also contend that "suspension of disbelief" is used as a term to indicate this thing (hence Ralph's point is valid - what he's referring to is an issue of importance), but that the term itself is misleading to a harmful extent.

This actually goes back to the point that Jared and I were discussing about playing characters on or off type for oneself - everyone kept bringing in "SoD," and Jared kept saying, "That's not the point." We were committed to the integrity of the venue, not to what we "didn't believe," or "didn't not believe" or whatever SoD is supposed to be literally describing.

Best,
Ron

"Integrity." OK, that's a good general descriptor for the situation. The only thing that concerns me is that integrity is a kinda absolute-sounding word, and SoD (for me) is about acknowledging that we are NOT in an absolute situation, we realize we can't acheive "100% integrity", but that doesn't matter, everything still works and everyone is having fun.

Until it's not, and they're not. Suspenders snapped/SoD broken.

So . . . you've got an imaginitive commitment from the group. You've got a game-world integrity that's being maintained (in some way) by one and all. Importantly, everyone knows this integrity is NOT 100%. There is "sufficient integrity" - either the imaginitive commitmet is high enough to overcome integrity issues, or the integrity is being maintained at a level that prevents issues from arising, or some approriately balanced combination of the two is working.

So . . . I can replace "SoD was broken" with things like "I lost my imaginitive commitment when the not previusly-established crane convienently dropped its' load of rebar on the villan" or "The integrity seemed way off when the Master Steersman couldn't succesfully dock his ship half the time".

Now I'm off to that gender-bender thread to see if this is actually useful in some way.

And after that visit . . . I'm left with thinking that even over in that thread, what people meant by SoD is exactly what's being discussed here - the ability to continue imaginitive commitment and accept the inevitably flawed-integrity as sufficient-integrity. The factors that enter into this are many, and often personal. E.g., there's a guy in my group who basically ALWAYS plays a female. It was a bit jarring at first, but now, the OPPOSITE is jarring - when he played a guy a few games back, it was hard for me to adjust.

This "integrity" we're talking about here is a twisty beast . . .

Gordon

Gordon C. Landis wrote:
You've got a game-world integrity that's being maintained (in some way) by one and all. Importantly, everyone knows this integrity is NOT 100%. There is "sufficient integrity" - either the imaginitive commitmet is high enough to overcome integrity issues, or the integrity is being maintained at a level that prevents issues from arising, or some approriately balanced combination of the two is working.

..

lumpley wrote:

...<U>Everybody</U> needs consistent characters, robust setting, compelling descriptions, suspension of disbelief. Having your SOD broken is good for nobody.

Hmm...Just to confuse things here's my opinion.

Integrity or continutity or consistency or whatever would be what you do positively to make the game more easily "believable". As has been noted this can never be 100% and I would say (sorta facetiously) is usually more like 50%. After all, the experience of sitting around a table and playing a game really bears little resemblance to actually slaying orcs, no matter what rules you use.

SoD, then, is to me how low a level of Integrity the player is willing to accept. So, if the current level is at 50% and I'm willing to accept that level, then I have "Suspended my Disbelief". Or to satisfy Ron better maybe, "allowed myself to ignore problems with the integrity such that I will not complain about the discrepancies found." Whatever.

And of course these things will not flow like percentages, but rather be bound up in actual details, such that particular events will actually bring Integrity or whatever below their SoD capacity temporarily. But that's not the point. The point is that we are discussing two things, the ability of the game and players to deliver detail with Integrity, and the players level of willingness to accept faults with that Integrity.

Call them what you like.

Mike

My quick two contrary cents: when you parse "suspension of disbelief" with a deconstructive eye, it naturally doesn't make sense. On the other hand, I've always read it as "suspension of disengagement." Audience engagement is the connection I see between medium and participant in that medium. What leads to SoD -- or integrity, which I find a vague term for what we're describing -- is consistent diegesis and well-developed dramatic tension.

In the computer game industry, we talk a lot about "immersion," which most computer game designers seem to define as suspension of disbelief through look-and-feel, tempered by genre expectations (meaning CG genres, which differ completely from the literary ones). If you have elements in your game/movie/RP session that jar players out of being engaged, you have what I would call an SoD problem. We've all had games like that, run by inexperienced or over-controlling GM's.

Ron, are the works you cited in your first post available online or are they books? I'd like to check them out before I dig myself any deeper.

Best,

Blake

To all,

First, I do not propose "integrity" as a simple and complete substitute for the "XYZ" that suspension-of-disbelief (badly) refers to. Integrity as a term was presented to Gordon regarding precisely what he described.

Second, Blake's concept of engagement makes the most sense to me ... and then I realize we're just going in circles, because that's what I described in my first post on this topic: attention, contribution, imaginative engagement.

Several of the posts have led me to think that people are reacting, rather than thinking, and therefore I'm willing to have said my piece (twice) and be done.

Best,
Ron

P.S. Blake, the ref's are books.

Thanks, Ron.

I do think some tail-chasing is inevitable when discussing terminology and definitions. This has been a productive thread for me in that it does get the mental gears grinding (and trust me, mine need oil).

Best,

Blake

OK, I'm a dog with a bone - let me take one more stab at this. I'm basically NOT worried about the merit (or lack thereof) to SoD as a particular item of terminology, but I'm very interested in making sure we've "covered" everything that it (poorly or otherwise) encompasses. So here goes:

RPGs (like movies, books and etc. - but I'm going to avoid analogy if I can) are not equivalent to reality - no one (sane) thinks they are. Yet somehow, our usual reaction to the unreal - to ignore, trivialize, and find ourselves unable to take it "seriously" - is suppressed. This is an actual, important phenomena, and no one in this thread is saying otherwise. I'll use Ron's label and call this phenomena XYZ for now.

In an RPG, we knowlingly participate in that which is not real, yet we remain attentive, contributing and engaged. Since it is XYZ that allows this, it's appropriate to be worried about "losing" XYZ. Note that I'm distinguishing XYZ - that which allows engagement in the face of unreality - from the engagement itself. It seemed to me that some of Ron's statements were conflating the two, and that had me confused.

But . . . what *IS* XYZ? I submit that pblock points the way by reminding us that the full phrase usually used is "WILLING suspension of disbelief". Or, as Vincent said early on, "Willingness to go on [as] if that's indeed true, call it". XYZ (that which allows continued engagement) really is simply our willingness to do so.

So, what things effect this willingness? Certainly integrity is part of it, particularly as specific events/elements/consequences are created during play. So can be a compelling narrative, or an interesting environment, or an appropriate challenge. The factors here can become intensely personal (Jared's general unwillingness/inability to engage with folks playing characters of a different gender than themselves), but there are general trends that are very worthy of discussion, especially within particular contexts (e.g., G/N/S goals, or setting types - what makes you willing to engage a universe that includes FTL? - or color elements - what would keep you engaged in a 'noir' game? - and etc.).

And (in an attempt to bring this back to the point in the original post) while it is interesting and valuable to look at this in the context of a particular GNS goal, this "willingness" is key regardless of goal. So, to the extent it supports a willingness to engage, an appropriately managed level of Gamist-style challenge can be a signifcant issue even if the overall goals of the game are Simulationist. This is especially true of the five "foundational" elements that become the priorities of Simulationism - because they quite commonly effect the willingness to engage, they are important issues even within Gamist and Narrativist play.

Heh - I didn't realize this was where I was heading, but I find it an interesting explanation of why elements that are not directly important to a particular goal in GNS are still important in play that is oriented to that goal. Which (SoD storm aside) is a validation of Vincent's initial post, it seems to me.

Looking back, my main point here is this: there seemed to be something missing from the proposed replacement (engagement, mostly) for SoD - what allowed for it occur. "Willing engagement" is a full and complete (quite probably superior) replacement for "willing suspension of disbelief" as far as I'm concerned.

Gordon

PS - Part of me sees this as meaningless wrangling over words, and part of me is really, really pleased to have identified where the key issue was (for me) and worked through it. Hope it's of some use to others.

Hey Gordon, everyone,

This thread, in provoking me to consider "sufficient integrity" and "imaginative engagement" as alternatives to "suspension of disbelief" is seriously undercutting assumptions about suspension of disbelief that I didn't know I had. Those phrases expose and make it hard to ignore that "suspension of disbelief" has quite a passive and selfish connotation. And although he might not have intended it, Wick's "snapping the disbelief suspenders" hits the nail on the head in this regard. There's a whiny, "don't ruin my buzz" subtext to "suspension of disbelief". "Suspension of disbelief" is something you have, and value, that's taken from you by the clueless or inconsiderate actions of others. You're napping, and dreaming, and someone turns on the lights. "My disbelief machine was off, man, why did you turn it on!"

In contrast, "sufficient integrity" provokes consideration of what it takes to produce it. And it's only a short step from there to where you start exploring how both the players and GM have shared ownership of, and impact the integrity of what's produced by gameplay. Unlike "suspension of disbelief," which connotes a vector, "sufficient integrity" connotes a supporting matrix. It's an enlightening phrase for anyone who's never understood why discussions of suspension of disbelief feel so damn passive-aggressive.

I'd also like to say that this thread is too substantive to have such a non-representative title.

Paul

Paul Czege wrote:
seriously undercutting assumptions about suspension of disbelief that I didn't know I had. Those phrases expose and make it hard to ignore that "suspension of disbelief" has quite a passive and selfish connotation. And although he might not have intended it, Wick's "snapping the disbelief suspenders" hits the nail on the head in this regard. There's a whiny, "don't ruin my buzz" subtext to "suspension of disbelief". "Suspension

Paul,

I'd also like to say that this thread is too substantive to have such a non-representative title.

Hi guys,

Although I too am getting just-about-full-up with the word-wrangling thing ...

I am still going to balk at the "willing," as it seems redundant to me. It strikes me as impossible to be engaged unwillingly if we are talking about a leisure entertainment activity.

It also strikes me that people are not considering my original point at all, which offered three words, not one, as a more meaningful description of XYZ.

- Committed (there's your "willing" right there)
- Contributing (ditto, plus adding the social contract)
- Engagement (which includes more willingness plus the imaginative component)

Taking these in combination, I see them to be both necessary and sufficient when describing what people do when creating imaginary stuff together, in media of any description.

Best,
Ron

Wow Paul, that's a pretty powerful observation.

Really takes the idea of SoD out of the arena of something YOU deliver to me and I enjoy...until YOU spoil it for me and I get pissed, and places it in the arena of SoD being something I have a vested interest and responsibility to participate in creating.

So perhaps Ron's right about his feelings on the term (although maybe not it the way he intended).

SoD may be a perfectly acceptable term for passive entertainments like movies where we as the audience are stuck with whatever the movie makers deliver (and what ever their goals and skills are). But it well may be an inappropriate term for RPG's where players should be expected to take a more active roll in creating an environment where SoD is possible.

[an aside: Ron, this is one of the few threads that after multiple posts by you on the subject, I'm still haveing trouble zeroing in on your point, so if you were, in fact, saying something akin to the above all along, forgive me for missing it]

A bit more world-wrangling that I *think* plays right into the value some folks are getting here.

Ron Edwards wrote:
I am still going to balk at the "willing," as it seems redundant to me. It strikes me as impossible to be engaged unwillingly if we are talking about a leisure entertainment activity.

Hey,

Is there some kind of Forge prize a person can get for simply nailing a topic, such that everyone gets it and will continue to get it?

If so, I award Gordon said prize. <Applause all 'round>

Best,
Ron

Compliments and respect to all,

Engagement will do, for me.

Blocking someone's ability or willingness to engage in a game feels about right for what I mean when I say that someone's SoD has been broken.

Two more chestnuts for this dead horse (before it's made into glue):

--When someone's ability to engage is blocked, (this is neutral with regard to source or cause--the GM doesn't "do" this to the player etc.) concensus breaks down. Mechanics et al in gaming exist to help this not happen. What we've been calling SoD might just be the concensus of one.

--The GNS and various concepts here are helpful in as much as they facilitate us all as game designers and explorers in identifying what will float our boat, will help us to actively and creatively engage in whatever game is at hand.


Vincent wrote:

And this is why it makes sense for Exploration to be broken out, on top of or underlying or surrounding the GNS, right? Everybody needs consistent characters, robust setting, compelling descriptions, suspension of disbelief.

(Insert, your XYZ terms of choice where appropriate)

But then, not everybody does need consistent characters, or am I wrong to think that gamist sensibilities would very much not require this?

--Emily Care

Emily,

I think it's fair to say that any role-playing is conducted with some standard of imaginative consistency among the relevant game elements. Thinking about a particular brand of Gamist, those who really like "powering up" characters via an immediate and gory reward system, I know that they might not care so much about "consistency of character" in terms of motivation, but woe betide you if you suggest that some feature of the character that operates toward the goals of play be treated inconsistently.

Best,
Ron

I've been quietly listening to the whole "Suspension of Disbelief" contortion going on and waiting. I thought the best minds here would have gotten around to informing what I had already shifted to (by way of losing the SoD terminology). And I think a lot of what has been said is very valuable, but it's all missing an important point (the most important, I think).

When Ron wrote: - Committed (there's your "willing" right there)
- Contributing (ditto, plus adding the social contract)
- Engagement (which includes more willingness plus the imaginative component)

When Gordon wrote: Here (again, I think) is the "complaint" folks are trying to prevent: "You're not engaging me!" While it might not be possible to be engaged unwillingly, it is possible to put the *responsibility* for being engaged outside of oneself. Ron may well take it as a given that everyone is sharing responsibility for things like this (in social-contract terms) in a healthy game, but I submit that this "XYZ responsibility failure" is a very common (and subtly persistent) dysfunction in otherwise functional games.

Finding a phrase that explicitly brings the responsibility home - for EVERYONE - seems valuable. That "for everyone" caveat is important, wanting XYZ is by no means of necessity a negatively-selfish act. But abdication of responsibility in the matter is. That's the part of "willing suspension of disbelief" that I'd want to make sure is in the new version of XYZ - the clarity that it's something you DO, not that is just done to you. And thus, "breaking" it is something you have at least some control over.

I agree with Ron that his triple-description (particularly with the parenthetical comments) covers the ground well - committed, contributing (participatory?) engagement. It'd be nice to wrap it up in a more "catchy" phrase - willfull engagement? - but, if we're on the same page regarding the actual issues here, I think that's the last of my word-wrangling energy.

Hi Fang,

I must respectfully disagree that Context was lacking in the discussion. All along, we have been talking about interacting with some form of media-entertainment, whether it's movies or literature or role-playing or whatever. I submit that all of these things already include Character, Situation, Setting, and Color - and hence Context is present as a given, within which all of the discussion about how we interact is embedded.

I do agree with you that the issue requires some reflection.

What makes this entire process difficult for role-playing, or at least why role-playing is full of pitfalls that certain other media are not, is that Context is being created by the same people who are also responsible for the contribution + engagement + commitment. We do not receive Context and then provide the three things, as we do in watching a movie. We are making it and providing the three things simultaneously, which is why I am always using the musician metaphor rather than the reader, movie-viewer, or even theater metaphors.

I do agree with you that the Context has to be there, in every way that you describe. I also agree with your implied point that attention must be paid regarding Context, in role-playing, in ways that movies/etc probably don't require. However, I don't think it's been missing from the discussion.

Best,
Ron

I watched this thread--with some interest--but I still don't buy it. What most writiers I've seen identify as SoD is the "belief" that those people on the screen (in the book, in the story, etc.) aren't actors (characters, NPC's).

What makes a story sad, exciting, or whatever is the internalization that those are real things that are happening to real people--people you emphatize with. Since the movie doesn't actually fool you (although if it does, successfully, you get the Blair Witch Project effect--which many fooled viewers found different from, say, The Shining) what better term could there be than "willingly suspending your disbelief?"

I do realize that Ron probably thinks the emotional reaction on the part of the participant is covered in engagement. If you want to use "emotionally engaged" instead of "suspended disbelief" okay--but if you buy that that emotional engagement *comes from* internalizing that the story is real when you *know* it isn't, suspending disbelief (to enjoy the story) seems a far closer fit.

-Marco

[ I think Ron's breakdown may well be the required recipe for generating SoD (i.e. without committment, contribution, and engagement you won't get SoD) but the sum total of it? As Fang said, I can have all that with a football game. It's a different feeling (being sad because your team lost and sad because Buffy's life is hopeless) ]

Marco,

I think our views on the fundamental act of viewing, enjoying, participating in, or interacting in any way with "a story" are so divergent that we aren't going to be able to agree on any secondary aspects.

Here are my views in a nutshell.

Yes, people are involved emotionally in the events of a story. Yes, they care about outcomes and characters. No, they do not "believe" anything about the "reality" of the characters. The emotions and reactions of the reader are real; the act of engagement literally means to open up to that degree of response to a fictional situation.

A person who thinks that a story is "really happening" to "real people" is delusional. Either the writers you refer to who allegedly claim that this is happening as a normal part of story-engagement are flatly incorrect, or you have misread them.

I'm fairly convinced that if we don't see eye-to-eye on this matter, then further discussion about suspension-of-disbelief, or lack thereof, isn't worth our time, and it's an "agree to disagree" situation.

Best,
Ron

Okay, then agree to disagree it is.

The guy who was either wrong or whom I was misreading was Samuel Coleridge.

" ... so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."
--Chapter XIV of his autobiography, Biographia Literaria

I was reading poetic faith as "belief" (in quotes--not the delusional belief you read into my post) and "real" from "semblance of truth." That is, on some level we accept the narrative as true.

-Marco

I think the issues with "what does it mean to be engaged emotionally and etc." in a story begin to move into psychology, general artistic theory and the like, and a meaningful discussion would undoubtedly involve reference works like Ron cited on movies early on. That said . . .

Coleridge speaks of a "semblance" of truth, not an actual truth. In fact, I'd assert that the "reality" of the portrayed situation has very little to do with our engagement - engagement lies in our willingness/ability to connect these (in many ways) OBVIOUSLY unreal things to our own internal sense of what MATTERS: "truth" as a poetic resonance and emotional/psychological value, not "truth" in terms of some reality-measured correspondence.

Thus I think Ron's whole point in avoiding/disliking SoD as a term is that we don't reach a point where we believe the people we read about (or see on screen, or whatever) are real, we reach a point where they connect with (engage, inspire, etc.) us despite (or, in some theories I vaguely recall from my lit-crit days, BECAUSE of) the fact that they are unreal. So yes (quoting Marco) "on some level we accept the narrative as true" - but that level is NOT a "reality" level, and that truth is not a simple, phenomenological truth. *I* (and I suspect, at least for the most part, Marco) do not consider the "belief" in the phrase SoD of necessity requires a hard reality/truth connection - when I say "I really believed character x in movie y", I'm not saying I think that literal person actually exists. However, SoD can point down that road, so I can see value in avoiding it - particularly in RPGs, where (as has been pointed out) we create the very context in which the characters and situations are portrayed.

And I may have a post in response to Fang and the context stuff, but I'll do it separately and RPG-focused. There's a limit to how much I'm willing to connect discussions of Coleridge and "poetic faith" with tips on keeping folks engaged in RPGs ;-)

Gordon

Ron Edwards wrote: I must respectfully disagree that Context was lacking in the discussion. All along, we have been talking about interacting with some form of media-entertainment, whether it's movies or literature or role-playing or whatever. I submit that all of these things already include Character, Situation, Setting, and Color - and hence Context is present as a given, within which all of the discussion about how we interact is embedded.

Ron Edwards wrote: I do agree with you that the Context has to be there, in every way that you describe. I also agree with your implied point that attention must be paid regarding Context, in role-playing, in ways that movies/etc probably don't require. However, I don't think it's been missing from the discussion.

Ron Edwards wrote:
engagement + commitment. We do not receive Context and then provide the three things, as we do in watching a movie. We are making it and

Hi there,

Fang, I'll buy that.

Gareth, that's an interesting point. I find it pretty convincing, or very almost so. The one quibble I'd have is that the players indeed still insist on the three elements I've mentioned, albeit focused toward goals that I don't share ... still, though, it also occurs to me that moviegoers or readers also insist on them too, so perhaps that sharp distinction I drew between role-playing and other media forms isn't valid. I'll buy that.

Best,
Ron

OK, here's the Context/TiC comment:

Fang, you've done a good job taking another angle at the issue that seems to me just a bit "missing" from the commited, contributing engagement description - just what is it that allows for us to do that? Knowing that CCE is what we want is only half the battle, we also need to know HOW to get it. At the moment, it seems to me there are lots and lots of factors (from the afore-mentioned willingness to GNS issues, genre conventions, and etc.), and TiC as a "box" to hold them sounds good to me.

As far as RPG to novel/movie/etc. corresponence goes . . . for me, the answer is always "yes and no". That is, "yes, there is this X similarity", but also "no, that doesn't neccessarily mean they are also similar in Y". Often, that means it's best not to draw the analogy, but as long as folks are willing to accept the limits of the analogy . . . cool by me.

Gordon

A lot of my interest lies in the portrayal of the environment from the GM's part. I think there are lessons to be learned from theatre and movies as to physical behaviour and scene framing so as to support the "audience".