[blort]

If Sim is “about” the creation of meaningful interrelationships of its constituent parts (Character and Setting – Man vs himself in the former and Man vs mankind and Man vs nature in the latter) then Situation is the only place where that process can happen. For it is only in Situation (The relationship between Character and Setting) that the Character’s relationship to Setting can be worked out. IOW Situation is the cauldron in which the meaningful interrelationships are created and shaped - it is in Situation that Bricolage takes place.

Why this partial thought? Because the role of Situation in Sim has not been adequately addressed. Now we know – eh?

[/blort]

See contracycle? This is why Setting is so critically important to Sim.

Hiya,

Seems to me, Jay, that this point about Situation applies to all of role-playing. I've diagrammed it and explained it a few times, most especially in the Gamism essay, where I describe Situation as the 800-lb gorilla.

So at the most basic level, yes, I agree with you.

However, as far as this idea's specific relationship to Simulationist play is concerned, though ... I'm thinking that you might be missing some of the variety within this CA. One of the key "tells" of a particular sort of Sim play is to be willing to drop investment in the current imagined situation for a while and really nail down a few details.

My observations of these events during play leave me with no doubt that the tactical consequences of the details (i.e. player tactics expressed in "knowing the rules") are not the point at all. The point is straightforwardly to ensure that the character's gun has exactly the right number of bullets and exactly the right penalties applied for recoil on subsequent shots.

All other play-activity gets suspended. The imagined characters hang in the air, their grimaces frozen, until the details get nailed down. The participants who are invested in this aspect of the game are enjoying themselves.

This is one of the reasons why Simulationist play is often confounded with an obsession over "picky rules." They're "picky" to Gamists because the rules/principles are being employed without reference to personal tactics and guts. They're "rules" to Narrativists (or would-be ones; most N-oriented gamers are pretty halting) who can't see why the action must be suspended. But that judgment is unfair, because everyone is obsessive about the rules which do support his or her CA (more accurately, that particular spin of his or her CA).

Side point: what I'm describing is a major feature of TROS play unless the group decides to ignore the relevant rules section. But that belongs in the other thread.

This sort of Sim play may not be the one which concerns you and your experiences, and your in-play accounts seem oriented very differently - in the games you've described, the Situation in motion is the priority, with maximal emotional investment in it (being in it) being reinforced by everyone at once. To stop everything for purposes of detailed clarity would be, I think, somewhat at odds for the overall Big-Model construction of what you and the rest of the group are doing.

But what I'm describing is definitely a major feature of other ways to play Simulationist.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Seems to me, Jay, that this point about Situation applies to all of role-playing. I've diagrammed it and explained it a few times, most especially in the Gamism essay, where I describe Situation as the 800-lb gorilla.

So at the most basic level, yes, I agree with you.

Sim very often demands a kind of precision and exactness about Situation that is less common in other modes of play. And this is so crucial in many Sim circles that everything else must at times take a back seat.

Howdy, I'm going to address some separate issues. If you feel it's warranted feel free to split.

Firstly, Ron said:

I'm thinking that you might be missing some of the variety within this CA. One of the key "tells" of a particular sort of Sim play is to be willing to drop investment in the current imagined situation for a while and really nail down a few details.

I will note, in reference to Ron's remarks on Sim fascination with what some gamers would consider trivia, that this does indeed strike me as an important tell of Sim, albeit as he says not so much the style you yourself play. My off-the-cuff suspicion is that this fascination is about defining Situation precisely. For some reason, and I have my guesses about those, Sim very often demands a kind of precision and exactness about Situation that is less common in other modes of play. And this is so crucial in many Sim circles that everything else must at times take a back seat.

And to emphasize something Ron alluded to, that precision is precision for its own sake. Certain forms of Gamism will demand equal amounts of precision, but its precision in support of Gamist goals (like maximizing tactical effectiveness) where the precision provides the options and the level playing field.

If Sim is “about” the creation of meaningful interrelationships of – Man vs himself in the former and Man vs mankind and Man vs nature in the latter) then Situation is the only place where that process can happen. For it is only in Situation (The relationship between Character and Setting) that the Character’s relationship to Setting can be worked out. IOW Situation is the cauldron in which the meaningful interrelationships are created and shaped - it is in Situation that Bricolage takes place.

Thanks everyone for your input, as I initially indicated my original post was but a fraction of an idea! After more contemplation and the posting of the others I have been able to realize more about my idea.

Hey Ron,

I absolutely, fully and completely agree with you that Situation is the 800-lb gorilla of roleplay. It is the act of wrestling with this gorilla that defines or at least distinguishes roleplay. Many times have you argued that he who does not wrestle with the gorilla is not roleplaying! (Roughly speaking)

OK – maybe we’re talking past each other. I am not saying that Bricolage is the only thing that happens in a Sim game, any more than I would say addressing Premise is the only thing that transpires in a Nar game. However, what I am trying to get at is that Bricolage is that action which distinguishes (defines) Sim play. Sure there can be many variant activities in addition to the distinguishing core process, but that core process needs to be present or its not Sim (or any CA for that matter.) Just like there may be players doing things within the SIS during a Nar game that aren’t directly related to addressing Premise, so it is with Sim. Thus my saying that Bricolage is the Sim process is not meant to imply that players cannot or are not doing other things not directly related to Bricolage; yet Bricolage must be present as the core process for the game to be described as Sim. What I do wish to make clear is that I do not believe these “non-Bricolage related” activities to be mistaken as definitional of the Sim process in and of themselves. IOW just as the creation of Bangs is not definitional of the Narrativist game process (they just happen to be examples of player activity in support of addressing Premise) neither is the nailing down or haggling over minutia/details definitional of the Sim game process. This “nailing down or haggling over minutia/details” is an activity in support of Bricolage, but not the Bricolage process itself and hence not definitional of Sim. I am with Chris in that I believe such activities are an effort to aide in “defining Situation precisely.” Ultimately it is not enough to just define Situation, a player must act on that Situation. This last sentence should not be controversial since Situation is the 800-lb gorilla of roleplay. If I recall properly, both you and Chris agree that play where the players don’t/can’t effect Situation is non-functional – whatever it is, it is not roleplay. Provisionally its been labeled Zilchplay (or the P-word). I hope that I have in some way clarified my position on this aspect of the discussion.

Ron Edwards wrote: One of the key "tells" of a particular sort of Sim play is to be willing to drop investment in the current imagined situation for a while and really nail down a few details.

apparition13 wrote: The few details need to be nailed down because the fact that they were not nailed down ejected one to all of the participants from the imagined situation. At this point it is impossible for play to continue until the details are fixed.

Ron Edwards wrote: This sort of Sim play may not be the one which concerns you and your experiences, and your in-play accounts seem oriented very differently - in the games you've described, the Situation in motion is the priority, with maximal emotional investment in it (being in it) being reinforced by everyone at once. To stop everything for purposes of detailed clarity would be, I think, somewhat at odds for the overall Big-Model construction of what you and the rest of the group are doing.

But what I'm describing is definitely a major feature of other ways to play Simulationist.

Hi Jay,

I get what you're saying. I don't think any more clarification is necessary, although I appreciate the latest post as a state-of-the-art summary.

What I'd like is some acknowledgment from you of my point. My point is that some folks would insist, in what appears to be direct and absolute defiance of your preferences and experiences, that play which focuses on the details that I'm talking about is what it's about. That not to do so is bad role-playing. That not to do so is simply and plainly lazy, in imaginative terms. Sloppy thinking, inferior imagination.

You don't have to agree with them, or even agree with me that such folks exist. What I'm looking for is acknowledgment that this is what I've said, and that you understand it. That's really different from arguing your own point, which you've done, and which I have read.

Best,
Ron

Hey Ron,

Ron Edwards wrote: What I'd like is some acknowledgment from you of my point…

…What I'm looking for is acknowledgment that this is what I've said, and that you understand it. That's really different from arguing your own point, which you've done, and which I have read.

Silmenume wrote: I absolutely, fully and completely agree with you…

Sure there can be many variant activities in addition to the distinguishing core process…

This “nailing down or haggling over minutia/details” is an activity…

If the players are “dropping investment” in the current imagined Situation to pursue these details…

I agree with your assessment that most if not all mechanics in so-called “Sim” facilitating games are laden with “picky rules.”

I also agree there are lots of “nailing down of details” type of play…

Ron Edwards wrote: My point is that some folks would insist, in what appears to be direct and absolute defiance of your preferences and experiences, that play which focuses on the details that I'm talking about is what it's about. That not to do so is bad role-playing. That not to do so is simply and plainly lazy, in imaginative terms. Sloppy thinking, inferior imagination.

lumpley wrote: Dice are to ease negotiation. They're to take the decision out of one person's hands.

apparition13 wrote: I see neither "Sim is “about” the creation of meaningful interrelationships of its constituent parts" or "its constituent parts (Character and Setting)" (as opposed to any other combination of components of exploration) as self evident. If I have missed the relevent analysis, please direct me to it; if not, please analyze.

Just to add to the pain, I might note that the first extensive discussion of bricolage in regular forums, to my knowledge, is in

On RPGs and Text [Long]



(edited for typo)

I have little time at the moment but I have to add that I'm with Artanis, I dont think sim is about "creating meaningful interrelationships" I see it more as creating interrelationships between meaningful elements. Those elements can be as, Ron mentioned, things that stop situation to nail down the specifics properly.

Wow. Caldis nailed it for me.

Best,
Ron

Hey Caldis,

I know that you said that you only have a few moments, so I will have to wait to reply in depth because there is nothing to really reply against. Once again you have only argued a conclusion. If you wish to counter my arguments then please do so, with arguments. As this thread deals with how Situation works in Simulationism, please include how your formulation demonstrates the functioning of Situation (the working of the relationship between Character and Setting) within Sim. Remember, as Ron has said, play that does not engage Situation is not roleplay.

As this was non-argumentation, I am confused why it was supported.

It's a conclusion that they're hoping you see the inherent argument from, simply from the conclusion itself. It appears you don't see it, however.

In any case, I think we're merely talking about perspectives here. This is why I have my alternate versions of Ron's theories that don't really contradict them. It's precisely that one sees this sort of detail exploration as "halting" exploration of the SIS, and another sees it precisely as exploring the SIS (or the whole creation of interrelations of interesting things, or the interrelations being interesting themselves), that I think is the problem in everbody understanding the way that everyone else sees the play of the others.

To one perspective, the number of bullets in the gun is, in fact, situation. To another it's color. I think that's key.

Mike

Caldis wrote: I have little time at the moment but I have to add that I'm with Artanis, I dont think sim is about "creating meaningful interrelationships" I see it more as creating interrelationships between meaningful elements. Those elements can be as, Ron mentioned, things that stop situation to nail down the specifics properly.

IMO the terms "meaningful" and "relationship" trigger all sorts of associations with "thats deep, man". But this can in fact be pretty trivial "meanings" - such as don't eat the yellow snow where the huskies go.

Hence I think we can see exactly why play halts to handle the classification of an item or element - it is because the fault in the representation implies things for other aspects of the setting, or distorts or changes the meaning of the object in question, and impinges on any other objects with which it has a relationship. Thats exactly why it has to be solved NOW, before play proceeds any further - the error threatens to turn what has been meaningful into gibberish, and prevents any continuation of meaningful play.

Hey contracycle,

contracycle wrote: IMO the terms "meaningful" and "relationship" trigger all sorts of associations with "thats deep, man". But this can in fact be pretty trivial "meanings" - such as don't eat the yellow snow where the huskies go.

contracycle wrote: Hence I think we can see exactly why play halts to handle the classification of an item or element - it is because the fault in the representation implies things for other aspects of the setting, or distorts or changes the meaning of the object in question, and impinges on any other objects with which it has a relationship. Thats exactly why it has to be solved NOW, before play proceeds any further - the error threatens to turn what has been meaningful into gibberish, and prevents any continuation of meaningful play.

Ron Edwards wrote: …play which focuses on the details that I'm talking about is what it's about. That not to do so is bad role-playing. That not to do so is simply and plainly lazy, in imaginative terms. Sloppy thinking, inferior imagination.

Mike Holmes wrote: To one perspective, the number of bullets in the gun is, in fact, situation. To another it's color. I think that's key.

My apologies for the quick comment without much support, I'll try and elaborate a bit further here. Part of this may seem off topic and should likely go into a different thread but I'll try and tie it back to the original topic. If I'm unsuccessful feel free to split it.

clehrich wrote:
That is, surely it's "creating meaningful interrelationships between meaningful elements"?

It seems to me that if the elements are meaningless, the constructed relationships are empty constructs. If the relationships constructed out of meaningful elements are nevertheless meaningless, then we have accomplished nothing by our process.

Could somebody explain to me what's going on here?

Hello,

I'm still with Caldis.

Jay, here is something to consider. Mike, Caldis, and I understand what you are saying. However, I at least consider it a bit self-limited on your part. No amount of further illumination, clarification, explanation, etc, by you is going to accomplish anything. This is because we get it - we understand what you mean. We merely disagree, due to our very wide experiences of role-playing and our acknowledgment that we don't want to write off what appears, in plain observational terms, to be a fine example of "Gaming on Purpose."

"That's just Color." It's Color to you. But we're not talking about you in this forum. We're talking about the array of Purposes (Agendas, modes, whatever).

If past experience is to be my guide, I anticipate that you'll try to explain yourself at least a couple of more times, that interest in your posts about this will slack off as we all discover that you are committed to repeating your explanation, and perhaps you'll switch over to private messages or private brooding, eventually. And then later we get some Site Discussion post about how the paradigm is being upheld at the expense of new ideas, or something like that.

Well, enough. Consider that I get it. Caldis gets it. Mike gets it. And that your conclusion would be reasonable if this were "the world according to Jay." But it's not. We do see how you see it. Explaining it again, or showing how what someone else says can be retooled into your worldview, is not productive.

I wonder if this is how William Colby felt when he was trying to talk to James Jesus Angleton.

Best,
Ron

Ron's point above came across a bit harsh but I think it's pretty close to the mark. I hope no one reads it as an attempt to stifle debate but rather as an attempt to move the debate forward if possible, a debate that right now has some problems. The biggest problems I see are synedoche, "my form of sim is the true form of sim", and an overeliance on theory.

On synedoche I'll just reiterate what Ron said, in my experience of the long running sim game I'm involved with the tells that people were gelling with what happened in game came as much from character and setting as it did from situation.

The overeliance on theory is an even bigger problem I believe. What is happening is we are getting theory built on theory built on top of even more theory. We're building an ivory tower of theory without checking to see if the foundations are solid, if that theory matches with what is happening in the real world. I know I for one would never have understood any of GNS or the big model without the examples taken from different game texts in the essays, the application of it towards games in the review section, and seeing it in action in posts on Actual play and in the Independant game forums. For anyone having trouble with GNS I really recommend the review section as a second step, seeing what aspects of games Ron relates to G, N or S is a real eye opener, plus as an added bonus you get to learn about some really cool games;)


I think Ron and others put a lot of time and effort into putting the glossary and the essays together. I think everyone who posts here should respect that effort and if they feel there is something lacking in the definition of an agenda like Simulationism they need to make a similar effort to find proof for their assumption. Find game texts that show a designers intentions matching what you are talking about, instances of play where we can see it in action, and show us how it relates specifically to play in this agenda and not to roleplaying in general.

Hang on, I think I just figured out what Jay is saying. Jay, follow me step by step and correct me if I go astray.

1. Situation is "the 'central node' linking Character and Setting" (Glossary)

2. Functional roleplay requires CA-meaningful effective activity

3. "One of the key 'tells' of a particular sort of Sim play is to be willing to drop investment in the current imagined situation for a while and really nail down a few details." (Ron, 2d post of this thread)

4. The type of behavior described in #3 here is not invested in Situation

5. If it is not invested in Situation, it is not CA-meaningful activity

6. If it is not CA-meaningful, it cannot be used to define CA

7. If it is not CA-meaningful, it cannot be functional roleplay

8. Therefore one of 1-3 cannot be true

And yet, in the #3 circumstance, "All other play-activity gets suspended. The imagined characters hang in the air, their grimaces frozen, until the details get nailed down. The participants who are invested in this aspect of the game are enjoying themselves" (Ron, same post).

This is because, according again to Ron, "everyone is obsessive about the rules which do support his or her CA (more accurately, that particular spin of his or her CA)."

Now continuing on beyond what Jay's saying:

That means

9. Obsessive focus on rules that support CA-meaningful activity is itself a kind of CA-meaningful activity

10. Suggesting that Situation is not as central as has sometimes been thought, at least for Sim

Leaving us with the following possibilities:

A. Situation and engagement with it is not the defining focus or instance of Sim play, or quite possibly of any play.

B. Functional roleplay does not require CA-meaningful activity.

C. The activity described by Ron as a key "tell" is not a Sim activity.

My sense is that Jay thinks solution A is incorrect:

If the players are “dropping investment” in the current imagined Situation to pursue these details that to me is the equivalent of Nar players “dropping investment” in the current imagined Situation to “fiddle” with a non-relevant Premise question (non-relevant meaning a Premise question that is not related to play in any significant way – IOW one that is “off topic”). I would have to wonder what such players were really up [to]. Premise must be addressed via Situation for play to have transpired. Same with Sim. Fiddling with the pieces of Setting is not the Sim game process of Bricolage. Haggling over mechanics misses the “point” of play as dealing with Situation is the “point” of play. Isn’t haggling over mechanics really a Social Contract level issue?

4. The type of behavior described in #3 here is not invested in Situation

clehrich wrote:
My conclusion, tentatively, is that you're all wrong. :-)

vs. A: Situation is not the sole locus of important and defining play. When Narrativists break from addressing Premise to do something else, they are still doing Narrativism. That does, yes, mean some revision of how we understand CA and its relevance to play and exploration and so on.

Hello,

Chris, the logical flaw is in #4. The players are invested in Situation. They simply are finding aspects of the Situation interesting which (for instance) Jay does not find interesting.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Chris, the logical flaw is in #4. The players are invested in Situation. They simply are finding aspects of the Situation interesting which (for instance) Jay does not find interesting.

You wrote: One of the key "tells" of a particular sort of Sim play is to be willing to drop investment in the current imagined situation for a while and really nail down a few details.

He wrote: I dont think addressing premise has to be a constant activity, much of play can be setting up the situation, providing color and background and adding detail. I'm sorry I cant remember the term Ron uses, maybe an "instance of play", Ralph used something with a similar meaning called it a "cycle of conflict" through that period players are looking to address premise, they arent doing it constantly throughout play.

Hmm, does this thread "Mechanics, Contribution, and Doug the Dice Guy" have something to contribute to this discussion. I am most definitely one of those GMs who will push pause while I go frantically dig through my source material for some needed detail. If you ask people who have played games with me about my play, you will probably here about this. This is closely tied to my liking detailed settings. So what I'm thinking is happening is that the detailed setting Sim guy considers the source material part of the SIS, and thus, just like we would all expect to pause to clear up a misunderstanding in SIS that was created entirely verbally through play, this kind of Sim guy expects to pause the game to clear up a misunderstanding because the source material that is part of the SIS is misunderstood. I note also that Ron grants that to some Sim folks reading the source material may be play. Aha! So when I read the source material outside of a game session, I am playing, and entering that material into the SIS, but also, if I skip a chapter, I still provisionally enter it into the SIS, so when suddenly that provisional material is needed, I need to go off an read it so that it can properly be entered into the SIS.

I'm also thinking that some of these discussions are so hard because it's hard for us to imagine how something that totally doesn't address our CA could possibly be fun. Now obviously if we are able to step back from the game, and accept people's own feelings about their play, we can accept that they might find something fun which we don't find fun.

Frank

Hey Ron,

Ron Edwards wrote: They simply are finding aspects of the Situation interesting which (for instance) Jay does not find interesting.

Underlining added

clehrich wrote: Hang on, I think I just figured out what Jay is saying. Jay, follow me step by step and correct me if I go astray.

clehrich wrote: My conclusion, tentatively, is that you're all wrong. :-)

clehrich wrote: Even if it is true that such activity goes on consistently more commonly in Sim games, perhaps of a certain type, that does not mean it is correctly described here. For example, it could be that such activity is a form of Situational engagement, albeit one not usual in Nar play. This strikes me as very plausible: just as some Sim players find the common (but not CA-defining) use of meta-play in Nar uncomfortable or problematic, what we may well have here is exactly the same thing seen backwards, i.e. this is a kind of Sim-common meta-play that Nar players find problematic or uncomfortable. In Ron's case, he may find it so, but is fair-minded enough to say that it seems to work for them; because of his predilections, however, he reads this as not Situationally engaged, because it would not be seen so in Nar games. That is, if Sim players may see Nar-style meta-play as "cheating," we may have an instance here of Nar players seeing Sim-style meta-play as not invested.

This “nailing down or haggling over minutia/details” is an activity in support of Bricolage, but not the Bricolage process itself and hence not definitional of Sim.

clehrich wrote:

Ron Edwards wrote: Chris, the logical flaw is in #4. The players are invested in Situation. They simply are finding aspects of the Situation interesting which (for instance) Jay does not find interesting.

But Ron, that requires a clearer formulation from you.

You wrote: One of the key "tells" of a particular sort of Sim play is to be willing to drop investment in the current imagined situation for a while and really nail down a few details.

Jay is, I think, isolating that. He may be wrong to do so, but you have indeed said simultaneously that the players are invested in the situation and have dropped investment in the situation.

clehrich wrote: What Marco is proposing, which is relatively similar to my comments vs. Jay's proposal, is that what's described here is not dropping investment. It is thus a different form of investment, which operates at a meta-level. Presumably this is a Technique common (though not exclusive) to Sim play in many (though not all) of its forms.

clehrich wrote: Another way to read it, which apparently you don't like, is to suggest that it is investment, but not in Situation. You're in agreement with Jay on that one, apparently: his initial point was that investment in Situation is the crux.

clehrich wrote: But in response to Caldis's point:

He wrote: I dont think addressing premise has to be a constant activity, much of play can be setting up the situation, providing color and background and adding detail. I'm sorry I cant remember the term Ron uses, maybe an "instance of play", Ralph used something with a similar meaning called it a "cycle of conflict" through that period players are looking to address premise, they arent doing it constantly throughout play.

Oh, unquestionably. CA-meaningful activity does not need to go on continuously. But if this isn't CA-meaningful activity, how can it be a "key tell" of Sim? …

I think all the haggling here is just an arguement over the meaning of investment. I'll follow my own advice and turn to actual play to clear up what I mean.

Standard proceedure for the sim campaign I'm in is for the Gm to come up with a mission for an individual member or for the group as a whole usually introduced through one a contact for one of the characters. What will happen next is usually a team meeting, and that meeting will always happen in a bath house. The reason it happens in a bath house is because one of the characters is a clean freak, he has a gurps quirk. Every chance he gets we meet in a bathhouse or he's buying a magical bathtub. These events are taking place within the situation but they are not invested in resolving the situation yet they are definitely tells of investment in Sim, they are clearly what the player is getting from the game and what the group is recognizing from him.

I'm with Ron and Caldis, and I find this thread a little unfortunate as a whole. Though I do want to thank Chris Lehrich for going through and breaking the whole thing down carefully - I wanted to do that earlier but I was too lazy, and I think it does make everything clear.

Loosely, I think the way I'd prefer to talk about it is that both the heavily immersed in actor-stance player and the exploration of setting that can go on 'around' that it comes out of being 'invested' in the situation in the broad sense. They're both forms of investment, and can serve any CA as techniques (Narrativist examples might be interesting for another thread).

The second one though obviously is not the 'direct' form of 'investment' that comes around when a player deeply immersed and in actor stance finds an 'identification' between his own 'desires' and the desires of his in-game avatar. But both this and the other can come out of a broad 'investment' in situation.

This all seems really obvious to me, so when I read threads like this it's hard for me to shake the suspicion that people are picking on Ron's words, the 'graduate student game' of scoring points on verbal contradictions. (This ceases to be a graduate student game when the contradictions touch deeper aspects of the theory: the difference is obvious to those who understand the theory, and not obvious to graduate students.) Let me immediately follow that up by saying I DON'T THINK THAT'S HAPPENING IN THIS PARTICULAR THREAD - Jay and everyone else on both sides here strike me as basically earnest and sincere. I have seen this happen in other threads on the Forge, though, and it's a common danger in theoretical discussions that get past first base.

That said, I don't really think much has happened in this thread - once you get past the pun on 'investment' here, and parallel it with Jay's insistence earlier on giving 'engagement with Situation' his particular immersionist twist, there's not much left but the verbal dispute.

Sean wrote:
Loosely, I think the way I'd prefer to talk about it is that both the heavily immersed in actor-stance player and the exploration of setting that can go on 'around' that it comes out of being 'invested' in the situation in the broad sense. They're both forms of investment, and can serve any CA as techniques (Narrativist examples might be interesting for another thread).

The second one though obviously is not the 'direct' form of 'investment' that comes around when a player deeply immersed and in actor stance finds an 'identification' between his own 'desires' and the desires of his in-game avatar. But both this and the other can come out of a broad 'investment' in situation.

I'm not sure, Marco.

It seems to me that taking actor stance is a technique. So it can serve any CA. Likewise, nailing down aspects of situation, setting, color, whatever (which I think is clearly part of play) is an activity, which a variety of techiniques can address, and can be important within any CA.

So then. There are uses of actor stance and heavy immersion actor stance and the various techniques for nailing stuff down about the SiS that facilitate Sim play, and those that facilitate Nar play. So even drawing the brush very broadly, there are four possibilities here, not just two (marry each family of techniques to each CA). I think that there's an overall disconnect in the discussion which is brought on by a particular, in this case somewhat unhelpful emphasis on a certain way of being invested in Situation (the one that corresponds to actor stance and immersion) and a false belief that the director stance or even real world dialogue modes of nailing down elements of Exploration is not play. (Indeed, isn't there a game called Universalis that's as much about this part of play as about anything else)? Which is why I'm a little down on the thread as a whole, though as long as clarity is reached at the end it has some value.

So anyway your type A and type B read to me as fairly good descriptions of two different ways you could use actor stance/immersive technique to meet a Sim or Nar CA respectively. But there's a second distinction in this thread, between play that addresses Situation through 'being in character', actor stance, and these other sorts of techniques, and play that addresses Situation by considering just how photon torpedoes work, that is relatively unconnected to this one, and which I was also trying to address.

Okay--I understand now how this activity has nothing to do with situation: photon torpedoes simply aren't relevant to the game in progress and people are stopping play to discuss them. I understand.

I can see how someone could make a case that this kind of activity 'isn't actually roleplaying' (or not CA-relevant). I'm not sure how this is really different than what goes on without books and dice at any fandom discussion. I mean, I can take it for granted that this happens--but discussions of what exactly the no-win scenario in Star Trek 2 consisted of broke out during one of my Star Trek games and I don't think any players there would've considered the discussion roleplaying--but rather a break in it.

That has all the topicality of a setting discussion (i.e. the discussion was "in a hypotheitcally real star trek universe what did this known-to-exist thing consist of?") and zero relevance to situation (the PC's were the bridge crew of an acting ship that had nothing to do with the academy).

-Marco

But it could be connected, too. This isn't that hard. The game is Star Trek; there's a Romulan Bird of Prey off the starboard bow; you want to know whether to fire on them, and one thing that factors into that is how on earth photon torpedoes work. That's the situation I'm imagining. This sort of thing comes up all the time:

"Wait a minute. You're hitting an IRON GOLEM with an unenchanted broadsword? It's got to get nicked or scratched or something..."

"If magic works based on contacting other dimensions that's fine, but if it's more like a psychic power the spell ought to work like this..."

In other words, it's when these kinds of discussion come up in relation to play that they're related to play, and not a digression.

There are players, and occasional moments for all players, when these kinds of questions become really, really important. The people who like to address them, and see addressing them as one of the points of play, and play for moments where they get to address them, tend to fall into the broad category of players who belong in a Sim CA.

Now these same questions can come up in the actor stance type situation. "I'm a Dunedain. What would I do here?"

"Vulcans believe that...therefore, I simply turn away from his challenge."

"Dude! In Akira it worked like this..."

Again, these could be fandom discussions, but when they come up in play, and mediate your own relationship to your own character, and your own role-playing, they aren't - they're Exploratory material in the game.'

If seeking out and answering those kinds of questions, and deepening your understanding of them, and 'getting it right' with respect to them in general, is your thing, you're in all likelihood a Sim-oriented player, at least when you play that way.

On the other hand, if you seek out and answer those questions because you want to engage directly with the moral and emotional material in them, make choices about them, etc., you're likely oriented towards Narrativism.

It's not that there are different questions, though the Sim player may ask them more emphatically or more regularly, because that's the point of play for them. It's what the questions are asked in service of that is indicative of Creative Agenda. I'm pretty sure.

One 'holy grail' of one type of immersionist play is to get so good at acting out your idea of elfhood that you don't have to break character to have the right responses. Fine, cool. I actually sort of like that kind of play, as long as the person doing it will break character to address important social issues in the group, and isn't using it as a cover for fuckwitude, etc.

Am I doing anything to help out here, or am I just creating more confusion? Or am I missing some other point that this thread is trying to make?

Sean wrote:
If seeking out and answering those kinds of questions, and deepening your understanding of them, and 'getting it right' with respect to them in general, is your thing, you're in all likelihood a Sim-oriented player, at least when you play that way.

On the other hand, if you seek out and answer those questions because you want to engage directly with the moral and emotional material in them, make choices about them, etc., you're likely oriented towards Narrativism.

Hello,

There is no contradiction.

My phrase "dropping out of Situation" referred to Situation as Jay values Situation, for purposes of explaining my point to him. This purpose has clearly backfired into an incredible mess, and the backfire represents one of the primary reasons why this forum is no longer functional.

Chris, I am not going to deal with Jay-through-you. Post what you think, not as Jay's representative.

Best,
Ron

Marco wrote: If the statement is made that Sim players stop play and discuss some element of SIS "far more commonly and reliably" than Nar players then it is a tell, statistically. I think this is similar to claims made about 'story' (that being that despite what the essays say, if your transcript is gettin' story you are really likely to be playing Nar).

I'm not sure, myself. But if the activity is a tell based on the "reason why it is done" rather than the idea that "doing it" is indicative of the reason then I think, maybe, we're lookin' at it backwards.

Caldis wrote:
The tell is in the how and why it's done Marco not that it is done. A gamist can do it to try and find tactical advantage, a narrativist to seek clarification to better address premise. The tell is that the sim player is finding enjoyment in the act of figuring it out rather than using what's figured out for something else.

Marco wrote:
It's not that I don't buy this--I'm just not clear on why this is called "a tell." What's the tell "telling?"

In poker a tell indicates the existence of some otherwise hidden piece of information (playing with one's wedding band indicates a bluff).

If we know the what, the how, and the why of an action, what is the piece of otherwise hidden information it is refering to?

Caldis wrote:

Marco wrote:
It's not that I don't buy this--I'm just not clear on why this is called "a tell." What's the tell "telling?"

In poker a tell indicates the existence of some otherwise hidden piece of information (playing with one's wedding band indicates a bluff).

If we know the what, the how, and the why of an action, what is the piece of otherwise hidden information it is refering to?

The telling piece of information is the engagement with this activity. If this is the part of play that the players can be seen to be really getting off on, if this is the biggest part of why the player is playing the game, then this can be said to be a sign of the players creative agenda.

Marco wrote: So what we're saying is: If the player enjoys activities for reasons we define as Sim then it is likely the player enjoys Sim-play?

Hey,

Caldis & Marco, whaddaya think about starting a new thread? I think (but am not sure) that there's some topic-drift going on.

No need to answer me, just utilize some self-critique and carry on as seems best.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: My phrase "dropping out of Situation" referred to Situation as Jay values Situation, for purposes of explaining my point to him.

Chris, I am not going to deal with Jay-through-you. Post what you think, not as Jay's representative.

Hey Marco,

Marco wrote: Okay--I understand now how this activity has nothing to do with situation: photon torpedoes simply aren't relevant to the game in progress and people are stopping play to discuss them. I understand.

I can see how someone could make a case that this kind of activity 'isn't actually roleplaying' (or not CA-relevant)…

That has all the topicality of a setting discussion (i.e. the discussion was "in a hypotheitcally real star trek universe what did this known-to-exist thing consist of?") and zero relevance to situation (the PC's were the bridge crew of an acting ship that had nothing to do with the academy).

Emphasis added

Sean wrote: But it could be connected, too. This isn't that hard. The game is Star Trek; there's a Romulan Bird of Prey off the starboard bow; you want to know whether to fire on them, and one thing that factors into that is how on earth photon torpedoes work. That's the situation I'm imagining.

Sean wrote: It's what the questions are asked in service of that is indicative of Creative Agenda.

Sean wrote: One 'holy grail' of one type of immersionist play is to get so good at acting out your idea of elfhood that you don't have to break character to have the right responses. Fine, cool. I actually sort of like that kind of play, as long as the person doing it will break character to address important social issues in the group, and isn't using it as a cover for fuckwitude, etc.

Sean wrote: Am I doing anything to help out here, or am I just creating more confusion? Or am I missing some other point that this thread is trying to make?

Ron Edwards wrote: My phrase "dropping out of Situation" referred to Situation as Jay values Situation, for purposes of explaining my point to him. This purpose has clearly backfired into an incredible mess, and the backfire represents one of the primary reasons why this forum is no longer functional.

clehrich wrote:

Ron Edwards wrote: My phrase "dropping out of Situation" referred to Situation as Jay values Situation, for purposes of explaining my point to him.

Okay, so a "key tell" of Sim is a particular type of shift in the techniques of addressing Situation, yes? Good, then we've concluded that this is a technique.

clehrich wrote: The only piece of it that remains controversial is the definition of "investment," which clearly is not well understood. Had we all known exactly what "investment" means, in particular what "investment in Situation" means, the argument would probably not have arisen. I suggest that this would be an especially fruitful area for further thinking, as in many respects this is the rubber hitting the road. Now that we have at least one example of two variant forms of Simulationist techniques for such investment, we have grounds for valuable synthesis from all the vast knowledge and theory about Nar.

Easy.

"Dropping investment" can certainly be read in two ways.

The first one isn't what I was driving at, but it certainly was a reasonable inference on the reader's part. It means not playing. It means doing other stuff in a way which means play becomes less interesting to everyone. People often complain about others getting up to channel-surf, reading a Robert Jordan novel, or just interjecting with a completely unrelated conversation during play.

Perhaps it's best understood by a contrast. In our game group, for instance, play is often interrupted by a sudden urge to discuss (say) Clint Eastwood, or by food arriving, or comments on the wine, or whatever. But none of this actually disrupts play; part of our unspoken Social Contract is that "during this time, play is the priority, even if we're not doing it ... hence anything else is permitted as long as everyone understands that at least one of us probably needs a little break. We resume with full enthusiasm." In other words, we're not ceasing to invest in what's up with the role-playing until the session is designated to be over.

The second one has to do with shifting the focus of the SIS in some major way, that is, losing some or all of the attention and concenctration from where it was. This could be about anything - all the way from "let's quit all this stupid talk and fight!" to "But wouldn't a phaser melt the conduit, 'cause it can melt a bulkhead?" Or to whatever, maybe a sudden discussion of setting details because someone read a supplement (not uncommon during our Hero Wars game ...).

Think of everyone's attention and concentration on imagined stuff during play - not the resolutions and events, but the stuff. You can shift that attention and concentration up to a larger scale, down to a tiny scale; you can freeze in-game time to shift the attention and concentration 'round and 'round an in-game object; etc, etc.

In a Simulationist context, for some folks, such a shift can be a serious aspect of play, especially when it concerns exactly the sort of details that Sean has outlined so nicely. What's interesting about playing with these folks is how they don't seem to perceive it as a shift at all. Experientially, I'm with Jay - musing over how the phaser "really" works or saying "hold it! hold it! I'm calculating the effect of the ship's pitch and yaw on your grip on the rope" is agony for me. It's exactly like "Dropping investment" would be in my first description above, which is probably why I phrased it that way.

I also think it's most common in a Simulationist context specifically because Exploration qua Exploration is the goal (why Ralph doesn't like the term "Exploration squared" I'll never know; but everyone, say "emulation" instead if it helps). To some folks, getting into this "hold the phone" focus on what many of us consider insanely picky details is a high point of play. I think that in Simulationist play, this is at least aesthetically consistent with the basic Creative Agenda, even if it's procedurally or locally inconsistent for other members of the group, who have their own idea of what's appropriate to Explore.

Arguably, functional (fun) Simulationist play relies on agreements about that "focus/stop" knob, not because it's unique to Simulationist play, but because there's usually less overt "why we play" at the real-person level going on in Sim than in the other modes. That's a neat concept, and I wish I'd thought about it earlier. Caldis' points in this thread are consistent with this way of looking at it.

Best,
Ron

Silmenume wrote: Hey Marco,
Exactly. Though I would be more inclined to say such play is “not CA-relevant,” but certainly can be enjoyable while gaming. It certainly adds to the game experience by adding Color. I see it as a way of helping “saturate” the game play experience because it is related on a general level to Setting and would include such things as say action figures, posters, music, etc.

My question is, if your examples are “not CA-relevant”, and a game was composed entirely of such conversations and non-situation relevant pieces, then how do you diagnose such a game?

Hello,

Marco, I agree with you about all that. You seem, however, to be convinced that I'm talking about some kind of automatic guarantee that the behavior is Simulationist.

... and that's just funky. We started this discussion with issues of Simulationist play, so let's stay there, and not worry about how anything we discuss might be present or manifested (similarly or differently) in any other sort of play. Differentiating between Sim and other forms of play just isn't an issue at the moment.

What I'm discussing is a set of behaviors which happen to be common across the diversity of Simulationist play (which is different from "common in any instance of Sim play by definition"), and why their existence refutes the extremity of Jay's initial starting position.

Side note: Jay very fairly presented his position as 1/3 baked and therefore acknowledged it as open for some major objections, with no implied critique of him as a person or as a thinker.

Not every damn discussion of Sim has to get into a freakshow about how it is or isn't different from the other modes. Let's just talk about Sim, for crying out loud.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

It's cool--I wasn't thinking you were making wild absolute statements or anything. I was just relating how I personally approach the clarification digression in gaming (since it happened last night and all).

-Marco

Okay, just for the moment I'm going to propose an alternate term, because this whole "investment" thing isn't getting us anywhere. If this already has a term, let me know---I missed it.

Situation-Focus
By this I mean a sort of rubber-to-the-road kind of play focused directly, right now, on the game-world situation at hand right here. The kind of moment that doesn't make Ron and Jay wince and think "get on with it!" You know, the stuff that really matters in play. Like, play play, not sorta-play or setting-up play or just-ironing-something-out-be-with-you-in-a-sec play. Play right here, right now.

I don't mean anything odd, clever, or complicated by this. It's a very constrained and narrow kind of play, but at the same time it's clearly a kind of play that just about every gamer (so far as I can tell, anyway) is extremely focused on.

I suspect that when the Big Model points to Situation as the crux, the center, of play, this is because the kind of play people really care about most is usually Situation-Focused play.

You with me?

CA and Situation-Focus
I'm pretty sure there is no controversy in saying that CA manifests strongly and clearly in Situation-Focused play, barring severe dysfunction. For this reason, when we talk about various activities and techniques and so on as CA-relevant, CA-meaningful, or whatever, we usually do so in the context of Situation-Focused play.

However

This does not logically entail that other play activity is not CA-relevant. Nor does it entail that CA-relevant activity must be Situation-Focused. These are propositional fallacies:

All crows are black........................................Sit.-Foc. play manifests CA
*Black things are crows................................CA-manifesting action is Sit-Foc. play
*Not-crows aren't black................................Non-Sit.-Foc. play doesn't manifest CA
Non-black things aren't crows.......................Non-CA-manifesting action isn't Sit.-Foc. play

The starred are fallacies.

CA-relevant action
In principle, any game-oriented activity can be, and probably is likely to be, CA-relevant. For example, the process of designing a character requires all sorts of choices and constraints by the player having to do with what sorts of play he would like to engage in by means of and through this character. Presumably if that player has any creative agendum at all, it will inform his design process.

Similarly, all that agonizing about exactly how many watts a phazer really uses and whether that's enough to erase the dilithium memory-crystals is CA-relevant, not only in how it is prosecuted by the group but in fact whether it is handled at all. Properly speaking, not handling it is a way of handling it, but the point should be clear: there is a CA-relevant choice made as soon as the question arises, even prior to its expression by a player, as to what sort of question this is and how it relates to what is conceived of as the "proper" sphere and focus of play.

For a very rough model, we might say that every game activity constructs a range of potential applications, and sort of wraps them around a core of CA (assuming, for the purpose of simplicity, that CA is relatively coherent and straightforward in any given player or group). When trying to put this potential into actuality, in Situation-Focused play, most of the potentials are temporarily stripped off, because they aren't relevant to that particular Situation; this leaves behind only potentials relevant to the Situation, which then become actualities, and CA. Not surprisingly, this means that Situation-Focused play, as the application of a great many such constructions, manifests a great deal of CA very clearly: we've stripped off everything not Situationally relevant from a whole bunch of constructions, but we've kept CA intact in each and every one of them, so we've sort of got an overwhelming quantity of CA.

Sim in Particular
Seems to me that Sim is a reflexive CA. Within Situation-Focus, the CA includes a desire not to see the CA, not to see the man behind the curtain as it were. In some cases, of course, this leads to an emphasis on immersion, but that's only one possibility.

The question that arises here is this: if Sim wants the Dream, and wants it intact and complete and lovely, then why are Sim players willing apparently to break from the Dream in order to emphasize seemingly trivial details about the Dream? Practically speaking, wouldn't it be preferable to gloss over the difficulty in order to stick to the Dream, which presumably is what is really wanted anyway?

This entails, assuming we're agreed here that such Sim players are not totally incoherent and insane, that such details cannot be glossed over. There is a quality to them which actively damages the Dream. Therefore if they are allowed to stand, as for example if the GM says, "Yeah, doesn't matter, anyway he blows a hole in the wall, what are you doing?" and the group doesn't agree that this detail doesn't matter, you have damage to the Dream that such players find unacceptable.

So here's what I propose.

The ideal goal is seamlessness. If the Dream were seamless, there would never be any need to break from Situation-Focused play, because the answer to every potential question of fact, however picayune, would already be known to all the players as it is in fact known to the characters. In such an extreme ideal, there would also be a near-total adequation of player to character, which would probably manifest as extreme Turku-style immersion.

The trick is, such perfection (which is unrealizable) has a number of different factors. Any game group must decide, usually largely unconsciously, which factors to prioritize. Some groups prioritize immersion, and gloss over slippage elsewhere in order to maintain this. A group like that Ron describes does not do this; they prioritize the depth and facticity of the Dream. Thus when a slippage occurs in facticity, it requires external handling. Similarly, an immersion-oriented group would presumably consider techniques to assist immersion when it fails, such as enforcing a rule that players must speak in-character and so on.

I've said elsewhere (I forget where; Jay might remember) that it is when the Dream can potentially break that the Dream is most strongly bolstered, because abductive failure leads to deductive success and all that. I think I'm sticking to that in Sim. Basically what I mean here is that when there is a slippage, i.e. a break in the seamlessness of the Dream, it is the resolution of that slippage that enforces the claim of the Dream's being seamless.

That sounds paradoxical, I know, so let me be clear.

This is what's called the logic of the "supplement". Suppose we assert, because we are Sim players, that the Dream itself is seamless and perfect. In a perfect world, we, the players, would interact with it as a real world. The claim is not that we are constructing the Dream through play, but that we are interacting with an already perfect Dream. To my mind, this is a crucial part of the ideology of Simulationism. I'm pretty sure that this is part of what Dr. Xero describes in his games: the aesthetic of the game is that the players do not construct the Dream, but discover a story or pattern or whatever within it, already present and waiting for them.

Now because we have accepted this in advance (which you notice is not typical of Nar or Gam aesthetics), any construction is undesirable. When we do what appears by other criteria to be construction, we read it differently: we read it as discovering what was already true. For example, we the players may not know whether phazer-fire induces current sufficient to wipe a memory disk, but the world already does know this. It's built-in, a fact of nature. When we debate the point, we're not inventing something new but figuring out how it always already worked. The players did not know the answer, but it was already determined.

The effect of this is that of the supplement: by supplementing perfection, we demonstrate that it needed no supplement. In other words, if we can resolve the question about the phazers, we have established that the game-world was indeed already perfect, that this was already known, but not to us. Thus resolving the question of phazers reinforces the Dream.

Provided, then, that your dominant aesthetic agenda is to reinforce the Dream, which more properly would be to bolster the claim that the Dream was and is and always will be seamless and complete, the handling of fine detail not only isn't CA-irrelevant but is in fact powerfully constitutive of CA. Thus, as Ron says, it's a Tell of a lot of Sim players.

What it isn't, though, is Situation-Focused. Situation-Focus by my sketch definition is the ideal baseline, the continuity of play when there are no apparent breaks in the Dream. Oddly enough, this implies that for Sim, Situation-Focus is not an especially strong locus of the manifestation of CA, because when the Dream needs no reinforcing there is no CA-activity that needs to take place.

All of which also goes some way toward explaining why Sim often seems incoherent and weird to non-Sim-committed players. It seems as though Sim players keep stepping outside of exactly what they think they want, i.e. the Dream, in order to focus on detail that really doesn't matter very much. Furthermore, they keep doing this even when there does not seem to be a very strong reason to do so, i.e. when the details seem trivial. My proposal here implies that such players may be doing this because they want CA-meaningful activity, which is difficult to effect without an apparent break from the Dream. From their point of view, such activity is not a break from the Dream, only a break from the ideal perfection of interaction with the Dream, which isn't the same thing. By reinforcing the Dream by these means, they help constitute for themselves the certainty and perfection of that Dream. It's worth considering that in doing so they also reinforce their own necessary distance from the Dream, putting the ideal quite clearly a bit beyond reach, which would be an interesting point to follow up elsewhere.

Huh. That all worked for me, Chris.

It also explains why I was stuck between "but it is Situation" (based on the claims of players I've known who'd said that) and "dammit it's dropping investment" (my experience of the same thing).

Best,
Ron

Wow Chris, that was so awesome. You really nailed what that kind of play is for me. That isn't the only type of play I enjoy, but when I'm running Tekumel or Glorantha, I go through those processes (though I have learned to set a time limit on myself, and give up the search and wing it instead). In my ideal game, when such a situation happened, all of the players would be invested in searching for the answer.

Frank

Good lord, are we actually going to agree about this? Weird! :)

<thread-drift>
I realize this has gone around and around for a bit, but let's note that this is exactly what this forum (GNS Model Discussion, I mean) ought to be about. Yes, it can be painful and difficult, but genuine clarification can happen here. And even if not everyone is going to agree with this set of conclusions (we haven't heard from Jay, for example), I do think something has been learned. I know I've learned something about Sim and about the Big Model I didn't know before.
</drift>

Well, we don't know that Jay agrees, and that's rather important, isn't it?

Sorry, just feeling spiteful that everyone likes Chris' version better than mine. ;-)

Mike

Silmenume wrote: Or we consider the idea that such a game is something like M. J.’s GM only input play (to Situation) and thus still considered part of some CA though the player input (to Situation) dial happens to be zero. This last one is difficult to justify since the Model seems to be based on the idea that Situation must be dealt with by the players before such play is considered “role-play.” By the way I am not making up the claim that “Situation is central” out of personal preference, this is clearly stated in the Model and the essays.

Mike,

Your spitefulness makes you a bad person, clearly. Just plain naughty.

Mark,

I'm pretty sure that what you're proposing fits with my conception of Sim as a reflexive agendum founded on an ideal construction of the Dream. Just so long as we're clear, and I'm pretty sure you are from your post, that this is a particular formulation of "situation" that is relatively specific to Sim, we're OK. The thing is, this isn't really how Situation is formally defined by the Big Model. Thus I had to theorize around that to deal with what Ron neatly describes: he (a mostly-committed Nar player) perceives as dropping out of Situation what some hard-Sim-committed players see as focused on Situation. My contention is that what's shifting here isn't Situation but engagement, because Sim as a reflexive agendum does not permit an absolute distinction between Situation and Dream, whereas Nar for example requires a distinction between Situation and Premise or Story.

That's all very abstract, of course, but an attempt to link what I think you're saying to what I was proposing and seems, mirabile dictu, to be working for people.

Jay,

Hello? You out there?

Hiya,

Mark/M.J. (I'm going to have to get used to that), and Chris, it's all working for me. You guys are very clearly stating stuff which I've been trying to verbalize for a while now. As you know, Chris, the "reflexive" aspect of Sim is a key thing for my understanding of this play-mode, which I've tried to articulate as the "what we put in, we get out, untransformed but better realized" aesthetic.

Best,
Ron

I'm not sure how this fits with Chris' or Mike's views, or even if I can defend it, but it does seem to fit with the idea that simulationism is still on agendum when it wanders into these side questions.

High five to Mike.

That is the result, I think, of sustained constructive discourse for what, going on six years now?

I also think it validates my original Simulationism essay, with all of its shortcomings, but perhaps burnishing that essay is best left to another thread.

Best,
Ron

clehrich wrote: The question that arises here is this: if Sim wants the Dream, and wants it intact and complete and lovely, then why are Sim players willing apparently to break from the Dream in order to emphasize seemingly trivial details about the Dream? Practically speaking, wouldn't it be preferable to gloss over the difficulty in order to stick to the Dream, which presumably is what is really wanted anyway?

This entails, assuming we're agreed here that such Sim players are not totally incoherent and insane, that such details cannot be glossed over. There is a quality to them which actively damages the Dream. Therefore if they are allowed to stand, as for example if the GM says, "Yeah, doesn't matter, anyway he blows a hole in the wall, what are you doing?" and the group doesn't agree that this detail doesn't matter, you have damage to the Dream that such players find unacceptable.
---snip!--
If the Dream were seamless, there would never be any need to break from Situation-Focused play, because the answer to every potential question of fact, however picayune, would already be known to all the players as it is in fact known to the characters. In such an extreme ideal, there would also be a near-total adequation of player to character, which would probably manifest as extreme Turku-style immersion.

The trick is, such perfection (which is unrealizable) has a number of different factors. Any game group must decide, usually largely unconsciously, which factors to prioritize. Some groups prioritize immersion, and gloss over slippage elsewhere in order to maintain this. A group like that Ron describes does not do this; they prioritize the depth and facticity of the Dream. Thus when a slippage occurs in facticity, it requires external handling. Similarly, an immersion-oriented group would presumably consider techniques to assist immersion when it fails, such as enforcing a rule that players must speak in-character and so on.
---snip!--
I'm pretty sure that this is part of what Dr. Xero describes in his games: the aesthetic of the game is that the players do not construct the Dream, but discover a story or pattern or whatever within it, already present and waiting for them.

Now because we have accepted this in advance (which you notice is not typical of Nar or Gam aesthetics), any construction is undesirable. When we do what appears by other criteria to be construction, we read it differently: we read it as discovering what was already true. For example, we the players may not know whether phazer-fire induces current sufficient to wipe a memory disk, but the world already does know this. It's built-in, a fact of nature. When we debate the point, we're not inventing something new but figuring out how it always already worked. The players did not know the answer, but it was already determined.
---snip!--
Provided, then, that your dominant aesthetic agenda is to reinforce the Dream, which more properly would be to bolster the claim that the Dream was and is and always will be seamless and complete, the handling of fine detail not only isn't CA-irrelevant but is in fact powerfully constitutive of CA.
---snip!--
All of which also goes some way toward explaining why Sim often seems incoherent and weird to non-Sim-committed players. It seems as though Sim players keep stepping outside of exactly what they think they want, i.e. the Dream, in order to focus on detail that really doesn't matter very much. Furthermore, they keep doing this even when there does not seem to be a very strong reason to do so, i.e. when the details seem trivial. My proposal here implies that such players may be doing this because they want CA-meaningful activity, which is difficult to effect without an apparent break from the Dream. From their point of view, such activity is not a break from the Dream, only a break from the ideal perfection of interaction with the Dream, which isn't the same thing. By reinforcing the Dream by these means, they help constitute for themselves the certainty and perfection of that Dream.

Doctor Xero wrote: This is one of the most accurate descriptions of Sim play I have have encountered anywhere!

There is only one thing you miss:
simulationism includes the possibility of construction within it.
However, the tools, resources, and raw materials must all be found within the Dream. In other words, simulationist creation is like formal haiku -- the formal haiku pattern pre-exists the poet, but the poem he or she creates is still original even though it utilizes a pre-existing pattern.

......

So simulationist construction and creation takes place with a greater consciousness of being within rather than outside the Dream or shared simulationist imaginary space.

And yes, you understand the point I have been trying to make with my terms Framework of Interaction and Frameworks of Independence -- and its relevance to understanding simulationism. Thank you for wording it so well!

I'll just add that I'm in agreement, especially when you consider MJ's point that situation is (or at least can be) simpler in Sim. I think that was the central sticking point for this debate and I'd be interested to hear what Jay has to say on it though I dont think he'd agree with it, then again I may have been misreading him all along.

On a side note I'd like to say your short synopsis on Bricolage above did a better job of relating it to roleplaying than any of the previous discussion. That's what I believe is needed before the term receives wide spread acceptance or the possibility of using it in debates as a meaningful term to all participants. A discussion for a different thread I believe.

I did have one question for you yet. What did you mean by the following?

clehrich wrote:
I think this isn't the same as the Big Model, but for narrowly analytical rather than applied reasons.

Caldis wrote: On a side note I'd like to say your short synopsis on Bricolage above did a better job of relating it to roleplaying than any of the previous discussion. That's what I believe is needed before the term receives wide spread acceptance or the possibility of using it in debates as a meaningful term to all participants. A discussion for a different thread I believe.

I did have one question for you yet. What did you mean by the following?

clehrich wrote:
I think this isn't the same as the Big Model, but for narrowly analytical rather than applied reasons.

Right now I dont see how it is any different than the big model. Maybe a clarification of a few points but not something that conflicts with it. Can you clarify where you think they diverge?

Chris, I already said this above, but it seems you've missed it. Not to burst your bubble, but the way we see it, I think, you finally have come around to understanding the way that the majority of us here have always seen sim. So it's not surprising to me the agreement we're seeing here. The rejoicing seems a little premature.

Most importantly, if I'd have to guess, I'd say that Jay will not agree with your assessment. You haven't reconciled his view with ours, I don't think, but just agreed with us. Meaning that we've gotten no further with the issue at the start of the thread. That is, I think Jay would say that what you're describing still includes as diagnostic of sim elements that he'd rather weren't in the description.

I may be way off, and would be overjoyed to find out that I'm wrong somehow. But let's not cry success in the thread until the original poster agrees that we've succeeded.

Mike

Hiya,

I'm with Mike.

Also, however, "success" only means that we all, or most of us, merely understand what one another is saying, not that we all agree.

So if that happens, then we're good.

Best,
Ron

Mike Holmes wrote: Chris, I already said this above, but it seems you've missed it. Not to burst your bubble, but the way we see it, I think, you finally have come around to understanding the way that the majority of us here have always seen sim. So it's not surprising to me the agreement we're seeing here. The rejoicing seems a little premature.

Most importantly, if I'd have to guess, I'd say that Jay will not agree with your assessment. You haven't reconciled his view with ours, I don't think, but just agreed with us. Meaning that we've gotten no further with the issue at the start of the thread. That is, I think Jay would say that what you're describing still includes as diagnostic of sim elements that he'd rather weren't in the description.

I may be way off, and would be overjoyed to find out that I'm wrong somehow. But let's not cry success in the thread until the original poster agrees that we've succeeded.

Hi Chris,

Sorry to say, it is agreeing with what we've been saying ... but I think it's worth pointing out that the "we" isn't a unified bloc or single set of text. Perhaps it's best to describe the standing agreement as a series of very hard-to-identify communications, composed of posts, reflections on old threads, phone calls, face-to-face discussions (often with drinks), and emails. So it's no wonder that it's not obvious. And it contains its own diversity of favored "ways to say it" and minor disagreements.

So basically, you've joined the "core," if you will. I can't say I'm happy that such a barrier exists between (1) simply posting here and (2) getting into that core set of extracurricular communication, but I can't say that this phenomenon is unusual, either - it exists for every complex discourse community I've ever seen or heard of.

Note that my statement of what this thread has provided for me concerns not how I think of it but rather how I communicate about it.

Best,
Ron

Actually I think that there's a disjuncture with all modes, but it's not with how people experience them. That is, I think we all are always all talking about very much the same things when we say G or N or S. The problem is in coming up with text that describes these things.

And they're all tough this way.

Narrativism, for instance, as Ron points out in his essay is often opaque to people in terms of the textual description until the person states it in their own words. In the way, way, way back, there was this Gleichman guy who rather vehemently disagreed with the textual descriptions of Gamism. In fact, I'd say that likely many more of these arguments would happen here if more primarily gamism players frequented the site.

Basically I see Jay as in the same boat. I think he probably is talking about the same thing we are, but his verbiage so far has just not seemed to match our perceptions, just as he feels that our verbiage doesn't match his. But I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point he puts out a statement to which everyone goes, "Ah, sure, I get it. That's sim yeah. Not how I'd have put it, but it's not incorrect."

No, this does not represent some brainwashing process or anything, these definitions are all accomplished independently. Heck, I've got a couple three alternate models that represent my statements about what I think the modes are all about. Largely I've presented them in hopes that people would "get" them better than Ron's, but I've found that that's been pretty hit and miss. Because people still have to put it in their own words.

To delve into your area, Chris, I think that perhaps what's going on here is that it's like certain rituals that you see in twelve step groups. Pretty much every alcoholic has had very similar experiences to other alcoholics. But each individual is required to put their own experiences into their own words to introduce them to the group. What this does is to give them ownership of their experiences in that social context.

Why can't RPG definitions be more clinical, and agreed to without this sort of process? Well, I'm guessing that it has to do with the ritual nature of RPGs as a whole. It's this ritual nature that makes Ron's observation about people and their playstyles being like religions in terms of how vehement people can get when defending how they play, or even in trying to explain it's superiority. I think it's this deep personal investment that requires yet another ritual of statement to get to the point where you own your modes of play in the social context in question.

That might sound kinda out there, but I think it has some validity. I'd really like to see someday how an unbiased ethnographer or somesuch would catagorize these processes. I think we might all be startled at how easily they could come up with descriptions for modes - descriptions that we'd all immediately reject as being an outsider position on the issues. Because we all feel that we've "lived" through the roleplaying, and have a personal knowledge of what it's about that's somehow inviolate.

Crazy talk?

Mike

clerich said:

with reference to Sim, Situation becomes its own category, of which the other elements (Setting, Color, etc.) are properly sub-classes. Furthermore, Situation becomes a near-synonym of Dream.

Tentative (very) hypothesis:
Walking a little further out onto the branch, it seems to me that each of the CAs (or major sub-CAs in sim’s case) is primarily (though not exclusively) focused on one of the components of exploration. It is also simultaneously constrained by that same component; seamless play happens inside those constraints. The other components then become the tools that are used to explore the primary component. So, restating my earlier post, in sim.obj, setting is the focus of, and constraint on, exploration; with character, mechanics, situation and colour taking on a secondary role as tools used to carry out that exploration. In sim.subj, character would be primary, with the others in the secondary role. Nar would be characterized by situation (addressing premise) as primary; and in gamist play mechanics (the rules of the game) serve as the focus and constraint.

Hey Chris,

I have been reading and re-reading your post since it first went up just to make sure I understood all the nuances and implications within. I didn’t want to run off about some issue half-cocked. I apologize for the tardiness of my reply.

If fully agree and support the ideas and terminology of “Situation-Focus” and “CA-relevant action.”

I want to make sure I understand you regarding the role of “fine-tuning details.” If I am reading you correctly you’re saying that the “attention” to detail in Sim is the rough Nar equivalent of determining and fixing Premise (but does not include the “making the important decision” part), yes? It is a vital, necessary, and to some a highly enjoyable process that supports and facilitates the “ideal baseline” (which does include making those “important decisions”) of play? “Ideal” not being prescriptive, bur rather theoretical. Such attention to details is CA-relevant in Sim because it is necessarily a part of Bricolage (Sit-Focus) itself? IOW one can’t Bricolage without having “things” to work with and this “adding or fining of details” is a process of “refining” or adding “things” or to the stockpile of “objects” that the bricoleur can work with?

Thus to say the players are “focusing on details” is a “tell” of Sim in the same way that players discussing Premise or creating Kickers or designing Spiritual Attributes is a “tell” of Nar?

clehrich wrote: The ideal goal is seamlessness. If the Dream were seamless, there would never be any need to break from Situation-Focused play, because the answer to every potential question of fact, however picayune, would already be known to all the players as it is in fact known to the characters...

clehrich wrote: I've said elsewhere (I forget where; Jay might remember [http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=140281#140281]) that it is when the Dream can potentially break that the Dream is most strongly bolstered, because abductive failure leads to deductive success and all that. I think I'm sticking to that in Sim. Basically what I mean here is that when there is a slippage, i.e. a break in the seamlessness of the Dream, it is the resolution of that slippage that enforces the claim of the Dream's being seamless.

That sounds paradoxical, I know, so let me be clear.

This is what's called the logic of the "supplement". Suppose we assert, because we are Sim players, that the Dream itself is seamless and perfect. In a perfect world, we, the players, would interact with it as a real world. The claim is not that we are constructing the Dream through play, but that we are interacting with an already perfect Dream. To my mind, this is a crucial part of the ideology of Simulationism. I'm pretty sure that this is part of what Dr. Xero describes in his games: the aesthetic of the game is that the players do not construct the Dream, but discover a story or pattern or whatever within it, already present and waiting for them.

Now because we have accepted this in advance (which you notice is not typical of Nar or Gam aesthetics), any construction is undesirable. When we do what appears by other criteria to be construction, we read it differently: we read it as discovering what was already true. For example, we the players may not know whether phazer-fire induces current sufficient to wipe a memory disk, but the world already does know this. It's built-in, a fact of nature. When we debate the point, we're not inventing something new but figuring out how it always already worked. The players did not know the answer, but it was already determined.

Bolding added.

M. J. Young wrote: Jay, it occurs to me to question whether there can ever be any game-related discussion that is not relevant to situation. It just depends on how the players identify situation.

After all, "You are crewmen aboard a Federation starship" is a situation…

…Thus I'm not sure how you can have discussion that is not relevant to situation, unless you're talking about Monty Python gags or pizza toppings or crooked dice, all of which are generally agreed to be disconnected from actual game events.

M. J. Young wrote: …in simulationism "situation" is much simpler than that, being entirely about having the opportunity to explore the world and so expand our understanding of it.

clehrich wrote: When we do what appears by other criteria to be construction, we read it differently: we read it as discovering what was already true.

Underlining and bolding mine.

Ron Edwards wrote: Point #3: the "possible" part means that we often have to say, hey, maybe we don't know enough. We've exposed a crucial or fruitful zone of ignorance, assumption, or need to investigate further. That's good!

Bolding added

Caldis wrote: "]On a side note I'd like to say your short synopsis on Bricolage above did a better job of relating it to roleplaying than any of the previous discussion. That's what I believe is needed before the term receives wide spread acceptance or the possibility of using it in debates as a meaningful term to all participants. A discussion for a different thread I believe.

Mike Holmes wrote: Most importantly, if I'd have to guess, I'd say that Jay will not agree with your assessment. You haven't reconciled his view with ours, I don't think, but just agreed with us. Meaning that we've gotten no further with the issue at the start of the thread. That is, I think Jay would say that what you're describing still includes as diagnostic of sim elements that he'd rather weren't in the description.

clehrich wrote: The suggestion then is that the Sim CA is reflexive. It's about itself, and it is, in committed players, potentially self-enforcing. And that entails also that Situation is entirely embedded within the Dream, and in effect the core of the CA. The CA itself being impossible to dislodge from other factors, again from the perspective of the actual Sim player, which means that everything is invested in Situation. It's quite impossible to play Sim without being so invested, in fact.

Mike Holmes wrote: Actually I think that there's a disjuncture with all modes, but it's not with how people experience them. That is, I think we all are always all talking about very much the same things when we say G or N or S. The problem is in coming up with text that describes these things. …

Basically I see Jay as in the same boat. I think he probably is talking about the same thing we are, but his verbiage so far has just not seemed to match our perceptions, just as he feels that our verbiage doesn't match his. But I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point he puts out a statement to which everyone goes, "Ah, sure, I get it. That's sim yeah. Not how I'd have put it, but it's not incorrect."

Jay,

Thanks for beginning what I think is probably going to be the denouement of this thread. Good thread, incidentally, when all is said and done!

Silmenume wrote: If fully agree and support the ideas and terminology of “Situation-Focus” and “CA-relevant action.”

I want to make sure I understand you regarding the role of “fine-tuning details.” If I am reading you correctly you’re saying that the “attention” to detail in Sim is the rough Nar equivalent of determining and fixing Premise (but does not include the “making the important decision” part), yes? It is a vital, necessary, and to some a highly enjoyable process that supports and facilitates the “ideal baseline” (which does include making those “important decisions”) of play? “Ideal” not being prescriptive, bur rather theoretical. Such attention to details is CA-relevant in Sim because it is necessarily a part of Bricolage (Sit-Focus) itself? IOW one can’t Bricolage without having “things” to work with and this “adding or fining of details” is a process of “refining” or adding “things” or to the stockpile of “objects” that the bricoleur can work with?

Thus to say the players are “focusing on details” is a “tell” of Sim in the same way that players discussing Premise or creating Kickers or designing Spiritual Attributes is a “tell” of Nar?

clehrich wrote: The ideal goal is seamlessness. If the Dream were seamless, there would never be any need to break from Situation-Focused play, because the answer to every potential question of fact, however picayune, would already be known to all the players as it is in fact known to the characters...

This lines up well with my experiences where there is a very high premium on the players to be thoroughly knowledgeable in the source materials. Point in fact we require any player who is with us longer than 6 months to have read the Lord of the Rings. I understand that is a matter of preference - I am not trying to be prescriptive.

clehrich wrote: Now because we have accepted this in advance (which you notice is not typical of Nar or Gam aesthetics), any construction is undesirable. When we do what appears by other criteria to be construction, we read it differently: we read it as discovering what was already true. For example, we the players may not know whether phazer-fire induces current sufficient to wipe a memory disk, but the world already does know this. It's built-in, a fact of nature. When we debate the point, we're not inventing something new but figuring out how it always already worked. The players did not know the answer, but it was already determined. [Bolding added]

So if I am reading you correctly, there is this “belief” that we as players aren’t doing any construction, while in fact we are constructing the Dream. And that this construction process is not self-same as fine-tuning details, rather that fine-tuning details is a process that aids in the construction process? Thus it follows that fine-tuning details and the construction of the Dream are not the same thing? That the baseline of Sim is the “addition” to the pre-existing Dream via Sit-Focus with as much or as little help as needed with the addition of details? The key here is understanding that while Sit-Focus is the baseline of Sim play (the defining process), it does not necessarily have to be the driving motive behind play.

As an additional note I should add that in the game I play in there are frequent conversations outside of the game about the nature of the “world” and how uncharted areas socially might function. IOW we discuss how the elves might react to X or what the Dwarfs things about Y.

In a strange way I kinda see Sim as a fractal pattern where at any moment we could “stop/focus” at any spot and magnifiy as much of the Dream as we see aesthetically fit via Bricolage with the support of specific details.

clehrich wrote: When we do what appears by other criteria to be construction, we read it differently: we read it as discovering what was already true. [Underlining and bolding Jay's]

Isn’t that interesting. We construct the additional material, but we treat it as if the information was pre-existing. It is a fascinating bit of paradox and I do think it is worthy of discussion, but not here, as per Ron’s sticky in the RPG theory thread.

Ron Edwards wrote: Point #3: the "possible" part means that we often have to say, hey, maybe we don't know enough. We've exposed a crucial or fruitful zone of ignorance, assumption, or need to investigate further. That's good!

Bolding added

I think this paradox regarding that which we as players create as discovering that which already is needs to be further plumbed because it is both an interesting assumption and it frequently gums up the debate on Sim. However, this is not to be discussed in this thread.

You’re correct and I have to take full responsibility for employing the term as the foundation of so many of my recent threads without providing an adequate definition which lead to so much pointless confusion. The problem is that while I understand it generally I am not sufficiently learned to be capable of explaining it effectively. I see now that Chris has picked up the ball and provided an explanation in the thread entitled Bricolage APPLIED (finally!) in the RPG forum.

My failed process of argumentation was to try to show that the non “holistic” ideas proposed for Sim actually were non-functional within the framework of the Model. IOW by showing that “piecemeal” Sim cannot work when examined with the Model, what must be left is that Sim must be “whole.” ....

I was going to post this yesterday, but decided that it didn't particularly add anything to the discussion; now reading Apparition's comments, I'm inclined to think perhaps I should have.

I think that indeed Apparition has misunderstood situation; it is always the 800 pound gorilla in every game. It's just that understanding situation ties back into understand agendum.

• In gamism, situation is about opportunity to prove one's ability against the challenges afforded by the interaction between character and setting.• In narrativism, situation is about the opportunity to make and challenge statements about serious issues through the interaction of character with setting.• In simulationism, situation is about the possibilities afforded for exploration of setting and character through their interaction.

Thus in all cases situation is central to exploration, and central to exploration of a sort which fulfills creative agendum. Creative agendum and situation reflexively define each other.

Jay, there's one thing I didn't understand from your post. Was that a yes or a no?

--M. J. Young

I think is the trick of sim is that it answers the question what goes on less egcentric than the other two CAs. It is not about "how do I feel about this" or about "how can I win here" but about what "happens to the dream we have created at this point of unrest". The char is not the prime star.
Now this version is rather hard to manage so most groups focus on a certain window of the world.
It is also a) more interesting to put the system under stress to look how far someone can go until it breaks and b) it is also more interesting to see it in first view instead of a more theoretical abstracted view from above.
That for chars get generated to testpilot and explore the system from within.
If some fault is found back to the construction desk and repair the problem before continuing.

That for it is also rather easy to train gamists to be test drive monkeys. You just have to drill them that keeping in character is one goal of the game and way to win and seemingly únfair situations are just another increase of difficulty to master.
Story oriented player are more of a problem because they often try to mess with the system parameters instead to keep in the system itself and test it from within.
Detailed discussing of a different part of the world isn´t leaving situation just refocusing on another part of the greater whole.

Hey M. J.,

Your summation on the role and place of Situation certainly squares with my current understanding.

M. J. Young wrote: Jay, there's one thing I didn't understand from your post. Was that a yes or a no?

Maarzan wrote: I think is the trick of sim is that it answers the question what goes on less egcentric than the other two CAs. It is not about "how do I feel about this" or about "how can I win here" but about what "happens to the dream we have created at this point of unrest". The char is not the prime star.

Silmenume wrote:

M. J. Young wrote: Jay, there's one thing I didn't understand from your post. Was that a yes or a no?

I must ask you pardon M. J. I am uncertain which question you are referring to. Could you please indicate the question so that I may then give you an unambiguous answer?

Silmenume wrote: Hey M. J.,

…what "happens to the theme we have created at this point of unrest".

…what "happens to the status of victory we have created at this point of unrest".

Hey M. J.,

I apologize for the extreme tardiness of my response. I have been taking some time away from the Forge so I have not been particularly diligent in responding. As regards to your question, “Do I agree that we all agree?” I think we do, but I am not certain. To the best of my recollection it Mike seemed to be operating under the understanding that I would not agree with Chris. As I indicated above I did agree with Chris very strongly. If Mike is in general agreement with Chris, and that his understanding of my position was based upon me ineffectively stating my arguments, then yes I think we are all in general agreement.

Yep, apparently I was incorrect in my assumption.

That said, I can't help wondering if we're only all agreeing because we don't fully understand each other. Which would be odd, usually misunderstanding causes disagreement. But it might be the case.

But I'm certainly not going to persue it. As I've said, perception of agreement here might be the best that we can hope for.

Mike