clehrich wrote: But mechanics carry baggage: they have particular places in complex systems which we have (as you put it) preloaded into the game, and furhermore they have strong ascribed values and meanings from the broader hobby of gaming. So I think it is not technically correct to say that mechanics never contribute anything. The insertion of a mechanic also brings in whatever is attached to it, kind of the rest of the iceberg below the water, as it were.

Anyway, a thought for another thread.

Knee-jerk reactions:

Doug is clearly contributing to play.

Will is a more complicated case. If he's contributing, then it seems like Gary Gygax is contributing to play when I play in Greyhawk (which I never, ever have, but never mind that). On the other hand, because Will was part of the group and they're continuing something they all did together, there is a personal connection that muddies the waters there. But I guess I'd still say no. Will has contributed support materials to the game, but he isn't contributing to play in the sense that I took to be at stake in this part of the discussion. Any more than the guy who wrote the encyclopedia, or William the Conqueror, contributes to a historical fantasy game set in England.

[Edited for clarity]

Doug changes the outcome of play. That does not automatically mean he contributes. In fact, he is an arbiter. I would say, even though Doug makes a difference and decides on direction of play, he has made no substantive contribution, i.e., he has not opened up new possibilities. He chooses between possibilities already brought into play by the players.

Will has provided basic material. The selection and introduction of these into play, however, is up to the players. Just like Doug cannot introduce a situation that the other players have to deal with, Will cannot decide to throw anything specific of his material in there. He's an influence, and maybe a really really strong one. But the contribution comes from the players accepting his material and putting it into play.

So, the difficulty might lie with the interpretation of the word "contribution." For me, in the context of RPG theory, it indicates very clearly an act by which something is actively brought into the SIS.

can you provide a more specific definition for Contribution in this context.

I can see a case for saying the guy who did the illustration for the third supplement, which inspired the GM to create an NPC "contributed" to the game for a certain sense of the word.

For a certain sense of the word, the pizza delivery guy contributed to the game (in the sense of the meta experience of the evenings session).

I sense that neither of those is where you're going with your question, however.

xenopulse wrote: Will has provided basic material. The selection and introduction of these into play, however, is up to the players. Just like Doug cannot introduce a situation that the other players have to deal with, Will cannot decide to throw anything specific of his material in there. He's an influence, and maybe a really really strong one. But the contribution comes from the players accepting his material and putting it into play.

xenopulse wrote: Doug changes the outcome of play. That does not automatically mean he contributes. In fact, he is an arbiter. I would say, even though Doug makes a difference and decides on direction of play, he has made no substantive contribution, i.e., he has not opened up new possibilities. He chooses between possibilities already brought into play by the players.

xenopulse wrote: So, the difficulty might lie with the interpretation of the word "contribution." For me, in the context of RPG theory, it indicates very clearly an act by which something is actively brought into the SIS.

Valamir wrote: Can you provide a more specific definition for Contribution in this context.

I can't really speak to Doug the Dice Guy, but I do have something I hope is useful regarding Will the Writing Guy.

To that end, Ralph, here's what I think "contribution" means: "What gets put into the SIS." For something to enter the SIS it must be shared, and it also must be negotiated (even if this negotiation takes the form of no one objecting). Without negotiation it's not in the SIS, it may be potentially in the SIS, but until we negotiate it we can't be sure that we are all imaging it.

What Will the Writing Guy and the Artist you suggest are giving to the game is what I call Constraint. According to the (terribly rough) current draft of my essay on the subject Constraint is: "The body of all things that provide boundaries for acceptable contributions to the Shared Imagined Space (SIS)." That is, Constraint tells you what you can contribute, or as Lumpley would say: (paraphrase) "How do I know what I can/should say?" when playing.

Will and the artist can't contribute because they can't be involved in negotiation. However, they can be used as Constraints. The group can decide "The world will be like Will wrote up here", or "The world looks like the pictures in supplement X."

So, going by our definition above shouldn't levels of Constraint that have been previously negotiated (i.e. Will's text) be considered to be contributed? I say "no", Constraint only potentially exists in the SIS, it doesn't actually exist until someone calls on it and the group negotiates it into being.

That doesn't seem too coherent as I read back over it, but I really should just get back and finish this article on Constraint. Maybe that will help.

NOTE: I almost cross-posted with John Kim on this one. I think his points are addressed in this post.

Thomas

Yeah. What Thomas said.

Look, what we're doing here is coining terms. We do that in order to be able to talk about the things that we analyze. Of course you could define the term "contribute" to include every single influence into the game. I prefer to call that simply influence. Maybe it's the same thing that Thomas calls Constraint. So, I prefer to define the term "contribute" to mean the decisionmaking and/or creative process of, as Thomas said, getting something accepted in the SIS. I need a word for that, because I see that as distinct and different from the general influence. Now it could be you have a better word for it, and we can talk about that, then, and decide which one seems to make more sense.

So by the definition you are using, choosing among options isn't contributing? So, for example, if players are in a fight where they choose different maneuvers and which to spend fortune points on, none of that is contribution?

Let's consider Will's boxed introductory text. Will deliberately mailed this to Graham to be read aloud. On the other hand, Graham is the one who spoke the words to the players. By "active", it seems like you are concerned with agency. Would it be Graham's contribution if he spoke it aloud? What if someone else spoke it aloud or passed it around based on Will's written instructions?

I think both Doug and Will have contributed significantly. I think Paul the pizza guy contributed--but not significantly.

I think the bar for significant contribution is that you ask this:
1. Would the game have been significantly different if not for that person (and you get to set the standard for "significantly" but, you know, if you say the guy who wrote the module, made the characters, and wrote the system you ran made no significant contribution to the gaming experience I think you'll have a hard time convincing most people you are using the word "contributed" correctly).

2. I think the degree of intentional input the person has to the specific game is important. This seems strange, I expect, but I think it's so. Being an inspiration is certianly important in some senses but I based a game off a Steely Dan song and I doubt the band members (or Buroughs, if we resurrected him) could guess what impact Do it Again had on my game.

On the other hand, Will and Doug will be able to tell me what impact they had with a high degree of accuracy.

I think once something becomes an "inpsiration" the person who is inspired by the subject is doing enough of their processing that the input to the game belongs to the person who is inspired. I'm sure there are gray areas though.

Paul: YES
(1) Strong Yes, the game would clearly be very much different.
(2) Strong Yes, his input was intentional and for that game.

Will: YES
(1) Strong Yes. The game would clearly (likely) be very much different if not for his input.
(2) Strong Yes. He created his input for that specific game.

Paul the Pizza Guy: NO
(1) Strong No. It is unlikely the arrival of the pizza made a significant difference.
(2) Strong No. He had no intentional input into the game.

Amy the Artist: Probable NO
(1) Medium Yes. We don't know what the NPC was--but unless the GM was working to re-create that scene and wrapped the game around it, I find it probable that another NPC inspiration would have been similar.
(2) Medium No. Unless the third supplement is directly relevant to the game that was run (and I'm assuming it wasn't) then her intentional input into this game is accidental. As with a song on the radio she could not accuately tell what input she had and so I give the majority of the credit to the GM for the game impact.

Walt the Worldbook Writer: Unknown
(1) Unknown. If his world book's text contained elements that were directly fundamental in shaping the adventure then I think he counts. If he has a very wide-scale world and some fairly generic notes then I think the impact is minimal. If the GM used stuff directly from the world book and fleshed it out a little and ran it I would be inclined to say Yes.
(2) Unknown. I think that, again, if the GM is working the game directly off springboard ideas in the world book or the world is very specifically wrapped around themes to the point where the GM could tell you important things about the action in the game by knowing which ideas came up then I think that's a case for Yes. If the game was just set in a nation near the "badlands" then probably not so much.

-Marco

I'm still operating at knee-jerk level here, but:

Ralph is right that 'contribute', as it stands, is unacceptably vague.

If you think that the game-as-played is a social phenomenon created by the players, it follows trivially that only the players at the table (or present e.g. over speakerphone, as I was when I got grounded by my parents during my high school D&D game) are contributing to the game-as-played in that sense.

It's in this sense that I think Doug is clearly contributing (he is evaluating play and making input into the SiS on the basis of his evaluations - he's a full-on member of the group, if one with an unusual set of duties relative to normal RPG experience) and Will is more or less clearly not contributing. Will's not there.

On the other hand, let's say a boyfriend of one of the players drops into the game, watches for a while, and then maybe drops a few minis on the battleboard, or makes an astute observation about what the party ought to do that is followed. He 'made a contribution' to the game-as-played by making a contribution to the SiS at that particular session.

If you want to think of an SiS getting established over an entire 'campaign', then there might be a point to that, and then Will pokes his head in the back door again. That's why I think Will has more title to be involved in the game than whoever wrote it and the various supplements. If I had to decide I'd leave him out, focusing on the particular session; but if something about the session referred back to the reality of the whole long-term game than Will might get back in. This is the same problem about whether a painting of a haystack by Monet is part of a larger art object (the series of paintings as a whole, which all relate to one another) or a single art object. In that case I think so much of the interest comes from the whole series that I'm more likely to look at the whole series as the art object. But in the case of an RPG session, well, it depends on the structure of the session I guess. But at least I've given rough criteria for when Will's in and when Will's out.

Marco,

We need to draw a distinction between "contributing something to the play experience" and "contributing something to play itself". I wouldn't say that the audience is part of a basketball game, but I would never dream of saying that they had no impact on it.

I'm going to stick with my definition of "contribution" until someone comes up with something better, feel free to comment on it. Specifically: "Contribution is what actually goes into the Shared Imagined Space."

This includes my assertation that nothing can enter the SIS without negotiation, and thus you can't "contribute" if you are not in a position to be engaged in negotiation. You write the book and leave? No. You write the book and then play by mail? Sure. In one you are able to actively negotiate, in the other you are not.

Remember, we're distinguishing from the general term "contribution" and trying to define a specific piece of jargon: "Contribution".

Looking at Sean's examples: Someone buddy stops by and makes some comments? Sure he can contribute, because he can be engaged in negotiation. You look through a splat of some sort? You can contribute elements from that splat, but the splat (and by proxy, its author) can't contribute because they aren't there to be negotiated with.

Thomas

Joh, to put it in the terms of my articles, Will has not contribute to the game; contribution is what happens there during play - that is, contribution includes both the mental generation and the communication of it to the other players. What has happened to Will's material is that it has been preloaded, as per my second article. (The explanation I gave of preloaded is that the group is treating stuff that actually hasn't been contributed as thought it had been.)

As far as Doug goes, exactly what Xenopulse said. Doug is not contributing, because he's not generating any imaginary content. Doug is a mechanic. :)

John Kim wrote: But if the players accept Will's material, isn't he contributing?

I'd say that material accepted directly into the game without any significant negotiation is actually contributed to the game, regardless of how it is contributed.

If Will sends a description of a character that reads "Joe is wears a large plate armor, uses a greataxe and has long red hair", and the group accepts this, entering a guy with a large plate armor, a greataxe and long red hair into their SiS, I'd call that a contribution.

In the case of Tolkien, he never added anything to the SiS. The keyword here is intention. Tolkien never intended for this specific aspect to be added to this specific SiS, so he never contributed to it. But Will submitted Joe to the SiS in much the same way a player sitting at the table would have done. If Joe is accepted into the SiS for which he is intended, I'd say it does not matter how he was submitted, he is still a contribution. And thus, Will contributed.

John Kim wrote:
Question: Has Will contributed anything to the game?

First of all -- let's remind ourselves that "shared imagined space" is a metaphor: in other word's it's literally false; literally, there is, and never could be, a shared imagined space. All there can be are more or less congruent individual narratives.

Too, note pace the Lumpley Principal, negotiation need not be negotiation qua negotiation -- it is simply the possibility of withholding assent, eg by leaving the game.

What "contributes to the shared imagined space" literally means is:

(assuming A and B are gaming together, X is a contribution)

1. A proposes X
2. B assents to forming a congruent individual narratives

-- or --

1. A proposes X
2. B makes modifications to X that would be incongruent with the original (forming X1)
3. A & B assent to form congruent individual narratives based on X1

-- or --

variations on the above

One way to specify "contribution" to exclude Will the Writer Guy is to require the second case to be possible: i.e. that the group modifies X and Will assents to it. If Will has no feedback mechanism, he cannot assent to any changes.

If Will does have a feedback mechanism the game can become a hybrid tabletop game/play by mail game or something of that sort.

[It occurs to me that "contribute" here is an exact simile for "negotiate" in the sense of "contribute X into the shared imagined space" would have the exact meaning of "negotiate X into the shared imagined space"]

Ian Charvill wrote: It occurs to me that "contribute" here is an exact simile for "negotiate" in the sense of "contribute X into the shared imagined space" would have the exact meaning of "negotiate X into the shared imagined space"

While I think that the points that have been brought up are correct in that they are internally consistent and accurate (IMO) I think the real question is this:

Does this (the original quote)

John Kim wrote:
Question: Has Will contributed anything to the game?

Question: Has Will added something to SIS via the process of negotiation during actual play?

I'd like to point out in case anyone is unaware, that the word "contribute" as John is using it is not part of the official Forge jargon. As far as I know, no one has used it before in this context, until I started using it in my Theory Without Jargon articles to describe role-playings fundamental act without needing to use words like Exploration, SiS, Negotiation, Credibility, Authority, and so on.

Maybe I'm guilty of just creating a new type of jargon. If I am, I hope that it's at least intuitive jargon that noobs will find easy to grasp. So, all this hand-flapping is kinda needless. "Contribution" means what I use it to mean, because I find that meaning convenient in this context, and not at all at odds with its conventional usage.

I'd also like to point out that, so far as I remember, I have only used "contribution" as a noun in the articles - "contribution" in the sense of "hey guys, here's what I'm imagining." If I've screwed that up, please point some places out to me so I can revise them.

Anyway, it's obvious that Will has a profound effect on the game. To argue against that is madness. But to argue about whether or not "Will is contributing to the game" is a moot point. Will is not there at the table making stuff up with everyone else. He is not involved with the negotiation process, which is what I'm specifically talking about in my articles.

(Also, I just realized I was kinda sloppy in my earlier post to this thread. I didn't really sit down and think it through like I should have. Sorry for that. I hope this post clears things up a bit.)

it all depends on what you term contribution. Probably there is more one way of contributing.

"creation" I'd say that this is the primary way of contribution. it presets what the rules, assumptions, and objects of interpretation will be. interpretation works within this framework. Wether one uses negotiation of interpretations is decided at this stage and not inherent in all roleplaying.

"interpretation" is the actualization of possibilties within the framework of "creation". A RPG story is not possible with out this dynamic actualization, but it does not follow that this is the "real" or only way of contribution. There could not be a SIS without the "creation" step.

If you say "nah, let's change Will's rule #753", you already have changed levels to the metalevel of "creation" again. Of course, in most games, you will be switching levels during a session.
You could even cross this Modell with marcos distinctions for a more fine-grained model of contribution.

In Wills case the players, even the DM are just interpreting (which does not mean they are not conributing, but Will's with creative contribution, there'd be no game - or at least no game where the question of his contribution could be posed). In many ways the groups playing is like playing RISK. one could interpret the result of a RISK attack ("that was a slaughter"), and "negotiate" assent to this interpretation. Have you now contributed to RISK?

Doug is contributing "interpretations", but only "interpretations of interpretations".

Sophist,

I'm not entirely sure what you are defining with this "creation/interpretation" dichotemy. Are you saying that any time any player suggests something new that it's creation, and that any time a player references an existing element it's interpretation? Let's say that Will has an NPC who is described as having "Long flowing hair". If the GM says that the NPC has "Long flowing, red hair" is that creation or interpretation?

Thomas

Paganini wrote: I'd like to point out in case anyone is unaware, that the word "contribute" as John is using it is not part of the official Forge jargon. As far as I know, no one has used it before in this context, until I started using it in my Theory Without Jargon articles to describe role-playings fundamental act without needing to use words like Exploration, SiS, Negotiation, Credibility, Authority, and so on.

Maybe I'm guilty of just creating a new type of jargon. If I am, I hope that it's at least intuitive jargon that noobs will find easy to grasp.

Paganini wrote: I'd also like to point out that, so far as I remember, I have only used "contribution" as a noun in the articles - "contribution" in the sense of "hey guys, here's what I'm imagining." If I've screwed that up, please point some places out to me so I can revise them.

It's also important to note that the mechanics never contribute anything. Since they don't have minds, they can't make stuff up the same way that the players do. Instead, mechanics are used to pick from a list of potential contributions.

Even after the dice are rolled, some player still has to contribute the result by describing it to the rest of the group. This is one of those instances where the contribution is pre-approved. Everyone agreed to use the dice to pick a result, so the player narrating assumes that his contribution is accepted by everyone. If the player narrates something other than what the dice selected, it's the same as when Carl broke the social contract earlier.

John Kim wrote: Well, unfortunately, I think the variety of answers I see on this thread indicates that it is not particularly intuitive. Particularly since that is supposed to be "theory without jargon", perhaps you should consider replacements? It seems to me that it is simpler to just say "Mechanics don't negotiate" rather than "Mechanics don't contribute" -- if that's what you mean.

I just had a thought on this. If Will prepares a setting writeup for everyone to read, and everyone agrees that whatever Will writes is part of the SIS, then can't Will be said to have contributed to the SIS? If a group of players decides to play in Tolkien's Middle Earth, and all agree to read the Hobbitt and the Lord of the Rings before play, then isn't everything in those books effectively part of the SIS (to the limits of our interpretation, but then those limits exist even for player contributions, if I describe my PC to the rest of the players, every one of us will have a different picture of that PC)? If a player in the Tolkien game says "You all meet in the tavern in Bree;" he doesn't have to establish that Bree is a small town on the border of the Shire and that it's a bit of a rough and tumble place (and for those who had just read the books, even more of a description would be fresh in their minds). Now someone might have to ask for a reminder of any more information that is part of the SIS (again, no different than having to ask for a reminder of what my PC looked like).

Another, possibly related, insight is that a setting book is just a set of rules providing guidance for what may become part of the SIS. And that goes for any artwork or maps. Or modules. And thus such material is part of system.

Hmm, I guess in the case of everyone reading the books, the information contained is entered into the SIS by the group's agreement to read the books, and grant them credibility.

Not sure if this really helps, it was just a thought I had.

Frank

ffilz wrote: I just had a thought on this. If Will prepares a setting writeup for everyone to read, and everyone agrees that whatever Will writes is part of the SIS, then can't Will be said to have contributed to the SIS?

John Kim wrote: <snip>
I will often imagine things during play without any idea what the original source of it was. i.e. Someone may tell me about some local noble on Harn -- and I don't know if it was an NPC spontaneously invented in some previous session, or written up in some module, or presented in written campaign material.

LordSmerf wrote: It doesn't matter what the sources of inspiration are, it only matters what the players at the table say.

Looking at Frank's example, I would say that even if the group has agreed to use the body of Tokein's work, that does not ensure that the body of Tolkein's work is in the SIS. "You are in the town of Bree." "The where?" "You remember Bree, right? It's like at the very beginning of Fellowship." "Nope, I'm drawing a blank here." "Okay, well, it's like this..."

LordSmerf wrote: In no way am I saying that Tolkein's work, or going back to the example at the beginning of the thread, Will the Writing Guy aren't having an impact on the experience. That would be a pretty silly argument I think. What I am saying is that the impact they have is qualitatively different from what the players actually say.

What this means exactly, I'm not sure.

Another interesting question is when Will creates new material based on communication with the players about what they did last session.

"Oh, you guys are on the road West? Well, it will take you several days to cross the wasteland. On the other side of the wasteland is the City of the Dead..."

In this case, the primary difference is the frequency of interraction. In this case, is there a real difference between Will and Co. and a play-by-mail game?

And as John mentioned, the SIS is always fragile. In fact, I would assert that there are sub-SIS which various people share. For example, if a player is absent one session, then the SIS created during that session will somewhat exclude the absent player (though he presumably would be filled in, but gaps would exist). Different players will remember things differently.

But here's a new insight. When we talk about SIS, are we talking about the body of creation that is shared memory, or are we talking about the instantaneous "live" SIS? If SIS is "live" then a player is only part of that SIS to the extent that he is actively interracting with the group. Certainly that is something that can be considered a distinguishing point, but in that case, a PBM game really doesn't have a live SIS (though a IM campaign would have one, though it is still qualitatively different from a face to face campaign since there are cues missing).

Now another distinction would be if the author of the material is part of the negotiation process. If Will is interracting with the players, then he is part of the negotiation process. Tolkien certainly isn't. A module writer probably isn't either (however - if the players communicate with the module writer and ask questions and receive answers, then the module writer does gain at least a weak negotiation link).

And perhaps that's a key point. What is really interesting is not the SIS itself, but the process by which it is established. Will clearly is much more a part of the establishment of the SIS than Tolkien, even though Tolkien may be contributing more raw material to the Middle Earth campaign than Will is contributing to Will and Co.'s campaign.

Frank

Heres the thing I'm finding odd that no one has picked up on - Will is Us.

* Homebrew system
* World Design
* Pregenerated characters

Quick way to get to some heart of it: If you took your own system, wrote up a con session for it, and handed it to Bob because you have another obligation, have you "contributed to the imaginary space?"
I'd be *inclined* to say no. As a game author, as soon as we hand that book over to the player we have no control of what is done with it, same as Will. We can *IMPACT* it by filling the game with easy rules, vivid and exciting characters and possibilities, and the like. Us and Will are similar in another respect: We form an attachment of sorts with the con players we meet. The folks I've personally dealt with, taught them to play Twilight, and talked with them are almost rabid fans even if they were a little "Eh, I'll just give it a shot" at first. Store purchases, on the other hand, are more lackluster. They know the game, know the rules, just...'Eh, its not bad.'
Will has already had this impact on his group. They know him, know his material, just like a congoer would see "Ralph's Indie Game, GM'ed by Bob!" and get excitied- someone else is GM'ing, but they know its Bob's material.
Will indirectly has a hand in the gameplay same as one of us. The impact is undeniably there, but it has no where near the same worth as the group at the playing at the table. If they decide to go with Will's Options over Bob's Options, thats still the players choice, Will just presented an option.

daMoose_Neo wrote: Quick way to get to some heart of it: If you took your own system, wrote up a con session for it, and handed it to Bob because you have another obligation, have you "contributed to the imaginary space?"
I'd be *inclined* to say no. As a game author, as soon as we hand that book over to the player we have no control of what is done with it, same as Will.

daMoose_Neo wrote: Will indirectly has a hand in the gameplay same as one of us. The impact is undeniably there, but it has no where near the same worth as the group at the playing at the table. If they decide to go with Will's Options over Bob's Options, thats still the players choice, Will just presented an option.

I think John's on to something here.

First, it seems to me that when we play My Life with Master, to say that Paul Czege has contributed nothing to our game is problematic. It denies the relevance and importance of his writing to our game. Taken strongly, it seems to suggest that it makes no difference whether we are playing MLwM or some other game, which leads ultimately toward System Doesn't Matter. I do not think that this is a matter of intent: if we play My Life with Master in a manner never intended by Paul, or which he might even object to, the fact that we are doing so from his initial text contributes something regardless.

Second, somebody brought up the question of constraint, and that seems to me a significant contribution. Theoretically, anything is possible in a game, but constraints make that not the case. When we sit down and formulate a social contract, however formally or informally, I think we are making a significant contribution to play. But much of what happens in that process is constraint: we agree that when the GM says, "Okay, no more discussion, here's what happens," that will be accepted as in the SIS (for example). Similarly, most game systems impose constraints on the SIS and what can go into it, which is very much part of the social contract: we agree to play this game in particular and not another, and thus to abide by any rules we haven't specifically agreed to set aside.

Third, mechanics as such carry baggage. What I was referring to in Paganini's thread was a little different from this, but it hits on Doug the Dice Guy. When we choose to make decisions by a Fortune mechanic rather than a Karma mechanic, for example, we have imposed constraints of some sort. This is by itself a contribution to how the game plays. And when we now bear in mind the rhetorical and cultural distinctions between dice-based and diceless gaming (see Eric Wujcik's article as an example) we are bringing something to the game that is not simply "well, which way should we arbitrate decisions?"

Here's an example. Suppose there is a mechanic that says, "If you don't like a rule, set it aside." That's a rule. Now how do we decide when it is applicable? As soon as somebody tries to apply it in play, we are faced with a social contract problem: did that rule mean "whenever you like," or "by GM fiat," or "by general agreement in advance"? Now compare this to a game that does not say this and makes clear, directly or otherwise, that it should never be applied. If the rule is in there, it stays, or you play another game. We are now straight into the ways in which groups decide about the nature of the authority of the rules text.

My point is that simply saying "okay, so then you roll dice" adds something, and I don't mean it adds a mechanic for arbitration. Sure, it does that, but it also says something about what kind of game this is, and how it ought to be played. Saying that your mechanics are diceless has cultural implications, since the assumed baseline is a diced system. If you look at Theatrix, for example, which is a diceless but in many respects traditional GM-dominated game, a big part of their shtick about diceless is that it's free and liberated, unlike all those narrow-minded old-fashioned games that use dice. Similarly, when a group decides to go with diceless, they are making a choice that has implications far beyond "how is decision-making handled?"

I'll pause here....

Perhaps to reiterate something I thought I said, I don't think we've got any consensus at all concerning the subject of this discussion. When we say "contribute", all by itself, what do we mean?

If we're asking who contributes to our game session, obviously the pizza guy does, and so does the owner of the building where we meet to play, and the manufacturer of the dice, and whoever made my clothes, and the utility company providing the heat.

If we're asking who contributes to the shared imagined space, we've got a much shorter list. At that point, anyone who contributes to the shared imagined space has to speak into it somehow.

The issue has been raised concerning a version of Will who interacts with the players, creating new material for the next session which someone else will run. In my most lawyerly manner, I would distinguish two version of this, and say that they are entirely different:

• If Will writes up the new material and it is distributed to all the players so that they read it, or if it is read aloud by someone at the table in its entirety as a unit or in the order he intended without skipping anything at any point, recognized as what Will said was true in the shared imagined space, then Will is a player in the game. He is making one statement per session, doing so remotely, and being accepted into the shared imagined space as he does so. He then learns what was done from there, and prepares his next statement.• If Will writes up his materials and gives them to George the Game Master, and George reads them and uses them as his authority for what he announces in the game world, then Will is not a player--everything he contributes to play goes through George, and it is George, not Will, who decides what gets contributed to the shared imagined space, in what sequence, in response to what actions. He may reference Will as his authority for this, but Will has no credibility in this situation. Even if George were to call Will on the phone to ask a question, and then come back to the table saying, "This is what Will said," George is the person with the credibility; Will is the authority referenced, much the same as looking it up in the rule book.


I certainly agree that Will contributes to the game, and considerably more so than the pizza guy. I do not agree that he contributes to the shared imagined space, unless all the other players receive his contribution directly from him via his mode of communication, unfiltered by the editorial decisions of any other player.

--M. J. Young

M. J. Young wrote: Perhaps to reiterate something I thought I said, I don't think we've got any consensus at all concerning the subject of this discussion. When we say "contribute", all by itself, what do we mean?

M. J. Young wrote: I certainly agree that Will contributes to the game, and considerably more so than the pizza guy. I do not agree that he contributes to the shared imagined space, unless all the other players receive his contribution directly from him via his mode of communication, unfiltered by the editorial decisions of any other player.

John Kim wrote: In practice, how different is the edited version from what Will wrote? For example, suppose the GM is reading aloud boxed text that Will wrote. He sees what he thinks is a typo and changes a word. By your criteria, does that one change suddenly change Will from being a contributor to not?

John then wrote: So there is some written resource -- written background for the adventure or world background or similar. So most people have read it, but it turns out that one player has not. So we take a minute and explain to him the short form. So what is the source for this?

To my mind, this is very similar to everyone having read the text. It doesn't make sense to call this a completely different contribution.

M. J. Young wrote: Gary is the gatekeeper for anything Will has written; Gary decides whether and when it becomes part of the shared imagined space. Even that boxed text which Will wrote which Gary reads does not enter the shared imagined space until Gary decides that it should do so. Will has not contributed directly to the shared imagined space; he has provided ideas from which Gary will draw to make such contributions.

M. J. Young wrote:

John then wrote: So there is some written resource -- written background for the adventure or world background or similar. So most people have read it, but it turns out that one player has not. So we take a minute and explain to him the short form. So what is the source for this?

To my mind, this is very similar to everyone having read the text. It doesn't make sense to call this a completely different contribution.

I'll commend you for coming up with a difficult case; but I think that in this case which way it falls depends on information not given here.

• If we assume that this "background" is written by someone--such as Will--for use with this game, and limited in such a way that everyone who read the text would be imagining much the same thing from it actively at this moment, then the player who did not read the text is much the same as the player who missed last week's session. In last week's session the shared imagined space was updated by contributions between the players, but this player was not there and so needs to be updated on the current state of the shared imagined space so he can continue with the other players. In the same way, the player who didn't read the background material has missed that change in the shared imagined space and is being updated on what everyone else is imagining at this point.

MJ,

I (think) I understand what and why you are saying what you are saying. My assumption is that you are trying to make the term "contributes" be more valuable in discussion by giving it some specific meaning in our context (is present at the game, adds directly to SIS by means of negoitiation).

Is that right? I could see a motive for doing that (to refine the language we use to discuss gaming).

The problem is, I think it's wrong. And I think it does damage.

Some meanings from the Google dictionary
Contribute (v) : be conducive to.
Contribute (v) : provide.
Contribute (v) : To present as a gift to a charity or cause

Everyone who mentioned that we are "jargonizing" the term "contribution" is dead on. The thing is: the concept of negotiating things into the SIS, which I believe must be an active process, is important enough to get a label. That's why we have jargon, to label things that we feel need labels.

I think that "contribution" is not a terrible mangling of the word, so it's a good candidate for jargonizing here. I offer again: come up with a better term that we can use to label what we're talking about here and I'd be willing to use that instead.

An example from existing jargon: I didn't understand Simulationism as I currently do until someone pointed out that it's not really about "simulating" anything, rather it's about "emulating". And then it clicked. We still use the jargon of Simulation because it's an important concept which is easier to manipulate with a label.

Now, to address Marco's "slippery slope" fallacy. The problem is, the pizza guy inarguably does "contribute" or perhaps "impact" the SIS. He's late, he's early, he has bad hair, he's incredibly attractive, whatever. The course that the game takes will, in fact, be influenced by the pizza guy. Of course the pizza guy will have less influence than Will's massive game bible (or whatever), but he has influence none-the-less.

So the question becomes: "Is there a difference between the contributions they are making?" And my (provisional) answer is "no". It's a matter of degree, not of type. At the most basic level Will is simply providing an input into the social situation, he is not actually actively participating in that social situation. He may be actively participating in some other social situation (say through correspondence), but in the actual sitting around the table and playing situation he is not a participant.

So, again, if you object to using the term "contribute" to label what we're talking about feel free to offer something else, and the "slippery slope fallacy" isn't actually a fallacy in this case.

Thomas

LordSmerf wrote: Everyone who mentioned that we are "jargonizing" the term "contribution" is dead on. The thing is: the concept of negotiating things into the SIS, which I believe must be an active process, is important enough to get a label. That's why we have jargon, to label things that we feel need labels.

Now, to address Marco's "slippery slope" fallacy. The problem is, the pizza guy inarguably does "contribute" or perhaps "impact" the SIS. He's late, he's early, he has bad hair, he's incredibly attractive, whatever. The course that the game takes will, in fact, be influenced by the pizza guy. Of course the pizza guy will have less influence than Will's massive game bible (or whatever), but he has influence none-the-less.

So the question becomes: "Is there a difference between the contributions they are making?" And my (provisional) answer is "no". It's a matter of degree, not of type. At the most basic level Will is simply providing an input into the social situation, he is not actually actively participating in that social situation. He may be actively participating in some other social situation (say through correspondence), but in the actual sitting around the table and playing situation he is not a participant.

LordSmerf wrote: Everyone who mentioned that we are "jargonizing" the term "contribution" is dead on. The thing is: the concept of negotiating things into the SIS, which I believe must be an active process, is important enough to get a label. That's why we have jargon, to label things that we feel need labels.

I think that "contribution" is not a terrible mangling of the word, so it's a good candidate for jargonizing here. I offer again: come up with a better term that we can use to label what we're talking about here and I'd be willing to use that instead.

Marco,

You and I clearly disagree on the value of jargon, discussing that is probably beyond the intended scope of this thread. I would be perfectly willing to discuss the value of jargon in a thread dedicated to its purpose or by PM. Let me know.

When I say that the pizza guy and Will both provide the same "type" of contribution, I am basically saying that there are two "types" of contribution into the SIS. The first is active participation in negotiating things into the SIS, which I'm wanting to hijack the word "Contribute" for. The second are all the things that bound and impact what gets negotiated, which I call "Constraint" (essay forthcoming). I believe that the difference between these two is important, very important.

Why? Because as game designers we can't do anything about the first one directly. The second however is what game design is all about. In fact, design is about impacting the "contribution" through "constraint".

Now, I must admit that I may be too close the problem, I am in the middle of a big essay on the subject and probably have a bit of trouble stepping back from it.

I am by no means saying that this is the only possible way to break down what impacts and influences ("contributes" in the broader, non-jargon sense) the SIS, but I do believe that it is an incredibly useful breakdown. I'm hesitant to say "the most useful" breakdown because I haven't really considered all that many possibilities, but it is the most useful one I've run across.

EDIT: Crossposted with John. I'll have to think about it, but my first impression is a gut reaction of "no!" and a rational reaction of "why not?". So, provisionally I accept "playing" as a useful way to describe this.

Thomas

Thomas,

If you want to use "contributes" in a certain way in your essay define it at the top (and use some bold characters). That way you can save some letters and people who even skim it will know what you mean.

I'm okay with that--but that isn't "jargonizing"--that's just using a specific definition for the purposes of the paper.

When we jargonize a word we are taking a term and saying "in our discourse there is now only one way to use it." When that leaves us saying that the guy who wrote the game, made the adventure, and created the characters "contributed nothing to the play session" we gotta step back a second and see what a complete failure to make sense has gotten us in return. In this case not much.

-Marco

It looks like I've got a few things I have to tackle here; maybe I can clear it up this time.

I'll start with what Marco wrote: I (think) I understand what and why you are saying what you are saying. My assumption is that you are trying to make the term "contributes" be more valuable in discussion by giving it some specific meaning in our context (is present at the game, adds directly to SIS by means of negoitiation).

Now, stepping back to what John Kim wrote: Let's compare to another field for a moment -- let's take movies. According to your logic here, the only one who contributes anything to the imaginary space of the film is the editor. After all, the screenwriter, the cinematographer, the actors, the set designers -- they all only contribute raw materials. Only the editor controls the final step of what goes into the final cut. Any piece of the film he can potentially cut.

John then wrote: Now, if all four of them read the background sheet, then Will has contributed to the SIS. Right? They all saw his complete text. But suppose three of them read it (A, B, and C); but D did not. So C quickly explains it to D verbally. Is it now C's contribution instead of Will's?

M. J. Young wrote:

John then wrote: Now, if all four of them read the background sheet, then Will has contributed to the SIS. Right? They all saw his complete text. But suppose three of them read it (A, B, and C); but D did not. So C quickly explains it to D verbally. Is it now C's contribution instead of Will's?

The problem I have with this is not really whether it's C or Will contributing to the shared imagined space at this point, but whether this genuinely represents a contribution to the shared imagined space at all. I don't know the answer to that.

John Kim wrote: Put back into the original question: given any case of Will the Writing Guy, Doug the Dice Guy...

John Kim wrote: OK, I'd like to narrow in on this key issue here. In my understanding, the answer is relatively simple. If everyone playing imagines roughly the same thing, then that thing is part of the Shared Imagined Space. i.e. If everyone has read Tolkien and they agree to have Tolkienesque orcs in the world, then that background is part of the SIS. The SIS is the intersection of what everyone at the table imagines about the gaming world. If everyone playing thinks there are orcs, then orcs are part of the SIS. It doesn't matter how it came about that everyone imagines it.

I gather you don't think that's true. You have a set of criteria for whether something imagined in common is part of the SIS -- but I don't know quite what it is. It seems to potentially depend on who invented it, when it was invented, when it was introduced, and who introduced it. I know that verbal statements made up on-the-spot during tabletop play are undoubtedly part of the SIS in your view. However, for all other cases, I'm not clear how you're deciding.

Put back into the original question: given any case of Will the Writing Guy, Doug the Dice Guy, George the Game Author, or a host of other possible characters. How do you decide if they are contributing to the SIS? My criteria would be this: Does everyone who is playing imagine something which that person created or influenced? If so, then that person (i.e. Will, Doug, George, etc.) contributed to the SIS. What is your procedure or logic?

To say that Will contributes nothing to SIS implies, strongly, that the SIS would likely be the same if he hadn't done any work. I think it's fair to say he doesn't participate in the SIS during the game (you could say he "participated in the act of getting the game together though) but to say he contributes nothing to the shared imaginings has implications that are clearly not true (i.e. that if we read Tolkien and imagine his orks vs. Warcrafts that the books were not a contributing factor to what we imagined).

MJ wrote:
Except that a movie never actually produces a shared imagined space.

Marco,

I think you may be beating a dead horse. I have already stated (I hope clearly and explicitly) that I am willing to give up my attempts to jargonize "contribution" because "play" works just as well. It is clear that Will contributes to play, but I am arguing that this contribution is qualitatively different from the contributions that are brought to bear during play.

I believe that M.J. is saying the same thing. As far as I can tell no one is saying that Will does not impact (or as you say "contribute to") the SIS. Such a proposal would be, as you say, ludicrous. Where do you see people saying that? I'm curious to see where this misunderstanding is coming from.

Thomas

Thomas,

I'm actually totally down with what you said (I think that for essay purposes your split is great so long as the meanings of the terms are clearly defined).

Wasn't arguin' with you.

MJ, on the other hand, said that he thinks Will does not contribute to SIS. He says this:

No one else is putting anything into their minds other than what they say (or write or otherwise communicate) to each other. That has nothing whatsoever with whether anyone else can contribute to the game, and I've asserted that the people who write the materials are indeed contributing to the game, they just aren't contributing directly to the shared imagined space, and they can't do that.

MJ Young wrote: I have also specified that "contributes to the shared imagined space" and "contributes to the game" are two completely different concepts.

Marco wrote: I think it's fair to say he doesn't participate in the SIS during the game... but to say he contributes nothing to the shared imaginings has implications that are clearly not true.

I think we're all pretty close here; but I also think I've been asked to explain my position a little more clearly, so I'm going to attempt to do so.

I've got thirteen hardcover Original AD&D books here; they're probably all right here in my room, unless my kids have absconded with them. When I play, it's understood that whatever is in those books is part of the game world.

However, if I open to the index of the Monster Manual II and run down the list of creatures that appear in the three main monster books, I would bet a dollar to a dime that there are creatures there I can't quite remember, or that I would confuse with some other creature, or that I really never fully realized was here somewhere. What's an Achaierai? What about an Aleax?

If I can't even remember what these things are, they can hardly be said to be part of the shared imagined space. Yet they are indeed part of the world, and any player could presumably make reference to any of these at any time.

The books serve as an authority that define the potential setting, characters, and system of the game world. Nothing in the books really exists within the shared imagined space unless it has been mentioned. At that point it enters the shared imagined space.

Sure, there are orcs in Middle Earth; but if we're playing in Middle Earth, and no one has given them a thought (say we've been in Mirkwood and Fanghorn Forests, where spiders, Ents, Wood Elves, and possibly the occasional Goblin are our concerns (yes, I know that Goblins and Orcs are the same thing in Tolkien, but most people miss that, so we'll assume they're not)). Orcs do exist in the source material, and there's a sense in which our characters undoubtedly know that there are orcs and so do we--but if no one ever mentions them, they don't really exist within the shared imagined space.

Now, as soon as someone says, "Balin was killed by orcs in Moria," suddenly all of those items enter the shared imagined space. All of them are informed by whatever authorities we're using to define our Middle Earth. However, it was added to the shared imagined space by the person who said it, not by the books. The books were referenced as an authority to define how that statement was to be understood. If someone were later to say, "It's too bad that Balin was killed in that forest," someone else would say, "No, Moria is a mine, not a forest. I can show you in the books where it is." However, the books don't add Moria to the shared imagined space; they serve as an authority by which we define what Moria is if we in fact do add it. The same could be said for orcs. Tolkien and OAD&D orcs are short, probably five feet tall; Peter Jackson and 3E orcs seem to be taller, between six and seven feet, perhaps. Whatever orcs we're imagining are the kind that are in our shared imagined space. If someone comments on how tall they are and everyone agrees to that, then we're imagining tall orcs, even if our authority supports short orcs.

The contents of the books are not in the shared imagined space until we put them there. We have to put them there, actively, not by saying, "the contents of the books are in the shared imagined space" but by inserting individual items into the shared imagined space in play. It really doesn't matter if every player at the table and character in the game knows that there are orcs in middle earth--until someone states it as a reality within the game world, it's not being imagined, and until the details are defined it is not assumed that they are known or agreed.

The background is only as detailed as the references we make to it. If we never mention Moria or Lothlorien or Fanghorn, for purposes of the shared imagined space they don't really exist, because they're obviously irrelevant to our play--in much the same way as tapestries on the walls of imaginary castles. I know that medieval castle walls were covered with tapestries to keep the places warm; I don't know whether all my players know this. It doesn't matter whether or not there are tapestries on the walls until someone mentions it. The existence or non-existence of such tapestries is not part of the shared imagined space--even if it happens that we were all imagining bare walls until it was mentioned, we didn't share it. We might all have been wrong, and agreed that we were wrong at some later point. "You know, it hadn't occurred to me, but there must be tapestries on all these walls. Let's look behind them." Bingo; suddenly tapestries have entered the shared imagined space, as if they had always been there, even though they are contrary to what everyone had envisioned a moment before. Bingo; orcs entered the world when someone mentioned them, as if they had always been there, even though no one had given any thought to them before.

Something is only part of the shared imagined space if all the players are cognizant of it, and that happens because communications between the participants have created that awareness. Mutual familiarity with the same authority is not the same thing. Just because the monster manuals mention the Zorbo and the Zygom does not mean these are part of the shared imagined space, until someone communicates the existence of such creatures in the game.

Did that answer it?

Footnote: the telling thing about Doug the Dice Guy is that his numbers are not random nor otherwise dissociated, but evaluative. That makes him a contributor to the shared imagined space, because he is listening to what is said and tagging it with a numeric value that represents its coolness, likelihood of success, or similar entirely subjective judgment.

--M. J. Young

M.J. just said everything I wanted to, only better.

Thomas

M. J. Young wrote: What's an Achaierai? What about an Aleax?

If I can't even remember what these things are, they can hardly be said to be part of the shared imagined space. Yet they are indeed part of the world, and any player could presumably make reference to any of these at any time.

The books serve as an authority that define the potential setting, characters, and system of the game world. Nothing in the books really exists within the shared imagined space unless it has been mentioned. At that point it enters the shared imagined space.

M. J. Young wrote: Footnote: the telling thing about Doug the Dice Guy is that his numbers are not random nor otherwise dissociated, but evaluative. That makes him a contributor to the shared imagined space, because he is listening to what is said and tagging it with a numeric value that represents its coolness, likelihood of success, or similar entirely subjective judgment.

John Kim wrote: By your view, it wasn't actually set in the eighties until that was explictly stated in-game. Thus , there was a sudden dramatic shift in the "Shared Imaginary Space" when the year was first verbally mentioned. In my view, it was set there from the start because that is how the players imagined it. It was imagined in common. It doesn't matter whether it was stated early in the session or read beforehand. If everyone is thinking/imagining it, then it is part of the SIS.

M.J. Young wrote: The background is only as detailed as the references we make to it. If we never mention Moria or Lothlorien or Fanghorn, for purposes of the shared imagined space they don't really exist, because they're obviously irrelevant to our play--in much the same way as tapestries on the walls of imaginary castles. I know that medieval castle walls were covered with tapestries to keep the places warm; I don't know whether all my players know this. It doesn't matter whether or not there are tapestries on the walls until someone mentions it. The existence or non-existence of such tapestries is not part of the shared imagined space--even if it happens that we were all imagining bare walls until it was mentioned, we didn't share it. We might all have been wrong, and agreed that we were wrong at some later point. "You know, it hadn't occurred to me, but there must be tapestries on all these walls. Let's look behind them." Bingo; suddenly tapestries have entered the shared imagined space, as if they had always been there, even though they are contrary to what everyone had envisioned a moment before. Bingo; orcs entered the world when someone mentioned them, as if they had always been there, even though no one had given any thought to them before.

I'm definitely going to thank Thomas for his help; that was what I would have said.

John Kim wrote: Let's take a game with pregenerated characters, like my mystery game The Business of Murder. According to your view, the SIS will change radically depending on whether players get their background through reading the sheets before the game vs having it verbally stated at the start of the game. If it's only there from reading, then it isn't part of the SIS and won't be until it is explicitly verbally referenced.

Then he wrote: OK, here you have another qualification -- i.e. that it has to be subjective judgement.

I'm basically with M.J. on Will the Writing Guy and all this stuff on "authority" which is very much a part of what I'm talking about with "constraint" (it may even be synonymous). That said, I don't think that we totally agree on Doug the Dice Guy, here's my take:

M.J. Young wrote: I see a substantial difference between Doug saying, "I really want this to work, so I'm going to give it a seventeen" and Doug saying, "Let's see--the second hand says fifty-seven, and if I get rid of twenty twice that leaves me with seventeen, so that's what I'll say." Even though it is the same number in the example, it is given for entirely different reasons, and so is a difference in kind in relation to how involved Doug is in influencing the shared imagined space. In the one case, he intends to influence it in a specific direction. In the other case, his opinion on what should happen is irrelevant and he has carefully isolated any thoughts he might have from having any impact on the game.

I think everyone is pretty much in agreement here the only thing being bandied about is exact definitions. To make it simple can we all agree that Will is contributing to the game but he is not a player in the game? (by player I include the GM) His contributions come either before or after the game takes place and are not part of the in game negotiations(though they certainly influence them).

LordSmerf wrote: I don't think that I see a substantial difference between these two cases. Yes, there is a difference, and yes these two cases result in different play, but I don't think it is due to a difference in type of interaction. Basically, I think that either method that Doug uses to choose his numbers, he is acting in the exact same manner as dice.

M. J. Young wrote: I'm splitting hairs, sure--but it is painted intentionally to be a very close hypothetical case, so it calls for hair splitting. If anyone is not convinced, as I say it doesn't much matter, at least until we see the game that does this. (Go, Erick!)

In response to Caldis, I can agree that Will contributes to the game, but not to the shared imagined space unless he has a feedback loop by which he receives the current state of the shared imagined space and makes an open statement to the group by which he changes it.