Ron Edwards wrote: This thread is closed. No more posting here, please.
Please take all discussion of Vincent's talk to a new thread.
Please take all discussion of goals & procedures at the Forge to new threads in Site Discussion.

Huh? I saw that thread mutating into a big-ass discussion of, well, Forge policy, so it gets moved to, errr, the Site discussion thread rather than the theory thread.

If you want to start a discussion on the limits of either the Big Model, or local discussions of theory in general, how about starting a new thread on either the Model board or the Theory board.

Tuomas, welcome to the Forge!

If the subject of the discussion is "roleplayers," it goes in Theory. If the subject of the discussion is "the Forge" or "Forge participants," it goes in Site Discussion.

That's just how we organize things around here; it's for our convenience and if it's not ideal it's still plenty workable. Being told to "take it to Site Discussion" isn't censure.

Questions and complaints about how the Forge's participants treat their theory are valid, even welcome topics, at least as far as I'm concerned. They belong in this forum, not that one. Please raise them!

If you'd like to take on a particular piece of the theory instead or as well - one where the subject is "roleplayers" not "the Forge" - it belongs in Theory. Please feel free!

-Vincent

Toumas,


I'm going to guess there's some cross-cultural communication issues going on here. Otherwise, I'm certain your posts today would not have seemed as hostile to me or others.

So, let's start over. You think there's some limit to what sort of theory we can talk about here. You're from Turku, too, which is cool.

So, talk about what you think roleplaying is, and why we do it (in the appropriate forums). We don't have limits on what we'll discuss. That's why we have two moderators. (Well, that and I know web stuff.) One of the two is the questioner, the inquisitor, the ombudsman. In other words, I don't buy all of the theory and I run this joint. So, what's the problem?

lumpley wrote: Tuomas, welcome to the Forge!

If the subject of the discussion is "roleplayers," it goes in Theory. If the subject of the discussion is "the Forge" or "Forge participants," it goes in Site Discussion. <snip> Being told to "take it to Site Discussion" isn't censure.

Questions and complaints about how the Forge's participants treat their theory are valid, even welcome topics, at least as far as I'm concerned. They belong in this forum, not that one. Please raise them!

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: I'm going to guess there's some cross-cultural communication issues going on here. Otherwise, I'm certain your posts today would not have seemed as hostile to me or others.

So, um, raise your issue, I think that's what we'd all like.

Post in Theory something like "most of you seem to accept as given that all power in the game derives from the assent of the players. That's backward; all power in the game derives from the GM, the sole final authority." Or, naturally, whatever your issue is. You'll get replies. You'll make arguments. We will too. We'll refer you to past discussions and expect you to incorporate them into your thinking - which you'll do. Sometimes you'll be like, "that past discussion handily dealt with my objections, thank you." Other times you'll be like, "nope, I'm saying a new thing here, that past discussion doesn't get at it." In either case, we'll be happy.

Posting that we've rejected your theories because we're set in our ways - well, it's problematic, as you haven't posted your theories to begin with. I don't know what I'm rejecting!

-Vincent

lumpley wrote: Posting that we've rejected your theories because we're set in our ways - well, it's problematic, as you haven't posted your theories to begin with. I don't know what I'm rejecting!

Oh.

Can't help you with that.

-Vincent

Jiituomas,

A more correct interpretation would be "a multitude of previous theory suggestions by other people than myself have been rejected by members of the Forgean paradigm due to the suggestions not fitting the GNS model, not because of any possible flaws the ideas contained. The method of rejection is invariably a 'look, we've discussed it here years ago to conclusion, followed by ignoring any arguments to the contrary."

The problem is that the only paradigm I can use as an example on the discussion here is the one Forge members are familiar with, i.e. Forge itself.

J. I'm going to be pretty point blank here. At this moment, in the context of this and the earlier thread, I'm not seeing the value-added from your posts.

You complain that no one is listening, yet when people specifically state their intent to listen, you instead refer vaguely to a multitude of incidents occuring to others that make you less inclined to participate...to which I can simply shrug since there is no way to respond to such an imprecise accusation.

You accuse the entire community here (as if we're some homogenous body) of stifling debate, yet offer no evidence except more vague references to impressions you've gotten from other threads long ago and some ramblings about different paradigms.

Your participation in the last two threads amounts to nothing more than personal venting with little substance.

If you have a paradigm you want to espouse...espouse it. Do it in the proper forum, and do it without hijaacking someone else's thread (which is why that thread got closed). State your case specifically and with rigor, and there are many who will be happy to discuss it. Slinging barbs about how outdated we are is pointless. If you have a better product...sell us on it...otherwise its all just so much vapor.

These discussions between theoretic scenes are a great interest of mine, because I see too little of it, and what little there is isn't usually useful at all. It's like people catch a certain brand of theory at some point, and after that are unable to converse civilly with anybody who doesn't belong to the tribe. I find this especially sad because most theory people here in Finland seem totally unable to talk with me about anything. Like it's a foreign language or something. I'd like to talk with these immersionists about my own immersionist game designs (Are they that? I don't know, immersionists don't want to talk with me.), or play some formalistic games with some of these vocal realists, but generally nobody cares to know about anything outside their own theoretical sphere.

The problems are partially about very basic culture issues. Different disciplines have different cultures of discussion, and these differences are some times thich in the air when different schools of rpg thought cross. Especially pronounced this is between the Nordics and Americans, which routinely misinterpret each other. Consider:
- It's a matter of personal pride to not get offended or shaken by critique in the Nordic, humanistically inspired discussion culture. Prove your strength by being cool, and state yourself with clarity. Ad hominem or any other tactics are regarded as OK, if they're executed with style, and you don't expect them to carry the day (their meaning is to prove your rhetoric and make the discussion interesting, not to argue your case). The correct answer is to ignore the irrelevant leads and strike true into the actual matter. Respect is gained through trials of wit and feats of any kind.
- In the Forge culture, you're assumed to respect your discussion partner from the start, as well as respect his weaknesses and personal misgivings. Political correctness is important. You should call out any intellectually flawed argumentation, like straw men and ad hominems. Your duty is to try to understand what's being said. The best conceivable end for the discussion is when all sides gain in understanding.
These characterizations are certainly sharpened near absurdity, but also quite true. We've witnessed it over and over here in the Forge, how a rigorous attack towards a position perceived to be flawed is interpreted as hostility. And to make matters worse, all people have multiple modes of discussion, and while some are similar between peoples, some are wildly different. Especially in when and how they're applied. I'm often in the middle in some perfectly reasonable discussions, where each participant hates or despises the other because of perceived wrong conduct. As I'm somewhat multicultural and between the scenes, I see this with clarity.

But apart from communication, there are very deep terminological gulfs one has to be careful in. No news there, eh? I actually gave a lecture on this matter in the last Ropecon. Here's a particularly relevant slide out of it: http://www.arkkikivi.net/verkko/luennot/TTT2.html It's in Finnish, but I'll go through the points in short:

The main cultures of roleplaying theory are the analytical (Forge), practical ("old-school") and artistic (Nordic) cultures. They differ in everything, even what they consider a rpg:
- Most analytical theories hold onto a variation of "activity of manipulating a shared imagined space".
- Most Nordic-type theories define roleplaying as the act of taking a role, fundamentally.
- Most practical theories consider the game as an object: if it's sold as a game, then it's clearly a game. The difference between rpgs and other games might be less important than in other theories.

The scientific approach and influences are also wildly different:
- The analytical theories are sociological and anthropological, striving to create tools for understanding the activity. Examples are the Edwardsian Big Model, Chris Lehrich's ritual theory and the Meilahti model.
- The artistic theories draw from literary analysis and general art theory, striving to clarify the role of roleplaying as an art form and psychological phenomenon. Examples are the Turku school and much of the Solmukohta theorists.
- The practical school is strongly anti-intellectual, and tries to generally prove that there is no theory to roleplaying. Theory is called "advice" or something like that, and includes research of GMing activity and game design. Examples include most games ever written, as well as books like "Larppaajan käsikirja" (Larper's Handbook, an important Finnish title) and Robin's Laws. Most of RPGnet rhetoric as well.

See how completely different, yet parallel the theoretic frameworks are? They have different scientific methods, different goals, different conseptions of what roleplaying is. All this should be understood if we want to have real discussions between the tribes. Take a look at that slide of mine: the picture represents the field of different games: the big circle are all the games a Forge-type theory considers roleplaying, while the smaller circle are the Nordic-type roleplaying games. All Nordic rpgs are Forge rpgs, but not the other way around! I cannot refer to any strongly formalistic narrativistic game (especially Universalis, which isn't a roleplaying game for over half of the Finnish theorists) in support of common theoretic discussion when talking with a Nordic theorist. Similarly, the old-school theory in it's pure form (represented by the oval in the picture) shares of both of the other fields, but also includes games that are not considered roleplaying by the other tribes. For example, serious discussions about CRPGs or Warhammer as roleplaying are pretty common in Finland (although those are extreme examples; D&D in certain applications is not a roleplaying game as far as Forge or the Nordic theories are concerned).

Anyway, I could spout about this topic to exhaustion. It's sufficient to say that up till now I've seen very little motivation for crossing these theoretical barriers. It's partially understandable: the motivations are different. A Nordic theorist doesn't actually benefit from a descriptive theory, when he's interested in a prescriptive model! The best we can hope for, it seems to me, is an understanding that the theories are built for different purposes, and there's no particular order of excellence between them.

xenopulse wrote: Let's look at this issue academically then. Let me see if what I learned in graduate school about the academic process still applies :). It seems you make two statements there:

a) A multitude of previous suggestions were rejected outright.
b) You don't have any examples except your own.

Hello,

If I'm understanding correctly, your goal in reading Forge stuff is to examine discourse processes here. And consistent with that, your goal in posting is to prompt or provoke those processes to reveal their failings, or at least the assumptions underlying their structure.

All of which violates the basic principle of posting here, which is specifically to engage in constructive discourse.

You're not interested in constructive discourse; as you put it, you're a de-constructor. Which is fine, as an observer. Here's the tricky part, though. You apparently want to carry out your research interest in an interventional, rather than observational way.

No one can stop you from carrying out this sort of research or investigation, and of course the Forge is a public site, so you can observe and draw your conclusions (which are depressingly similar to all deconstructionist conclusions) to your heart's content.

You're also, obviously, free to post as you please. But I hope it's clear that there is no way that your posts can be taken seriously by anyone else here. When you post, it's an experiment upon the other people in a thread, not participating with them.

How can anyone possibly regard such posts as something to be considered here? You are treating everyone else as research subjects, not as discourse partners. The only possible response is to carry on with our own shared agenda here (constructive discourse) and to ignore your posts as the interventional attempts to disrupt that process that you've described.

Perhaps, if you do want to post your observations and notions about how "things work here," the best place is a website of your own, or a public forum which is dedicated to deconstructive efforts. Your observations of the Forge would certainly be data for such a place. People here who are interested in such an approach could go there and see what's up.

Best,
Ron

Hey, how about slowing down here? Tuomas: it's an accepted practice to take your time, so how about pondering the discussion so far for a day or two and thinking on your goals and position?

Ron is certainly justified (not that I have any business to judge, except as an individual) in shredding Tuomas's words to pieces like that, based on what Tuomas actually wrote. I feel, however, that Tuomas at least, and to some extent others as well, have perhaps posted too much and taken the discussion too far, too fast. There's no honor in forcing Tuomas to defend patently absurd conclusions, if he should have over-extended himself into such. So let's let Tuomas redefine his approach before going further, how about it?

Tuomas: think on it, and take your time writing your next post. I'm sure that you have much more constructive stuff in you than what we've seen so far. Grab those example threads of bad discussion, for example, if you really think that a fruitful approach. And don't feel that you have to defend things you might have written here, if there's anything you come to reconsider. Writing before thinking happens to everyone.

Hmm.... I have no clue on where this text should go, so I'll put it here.


From my angle I kind of understand the both sides to a degree. A little background; I've been on my RPG-theory streak for a couple of years now. In that process, as J.Tuomas says, I, too, found it necessary (academically, philosophically and ethically) to familiarize myself with the paradigms of the field and earlier writings. So, the current attempt is my I guess third shot at getting inside this paradigm.

However, The Forge is fairly difficult to access as well as to comment.

The thing is, you've talked a lot here. Hey, I don't know, 12000 posts on GNS-forum is an immense amount of text, not to talk about 29000 on the rest of the theory (whatever that means in the site architecture).

Then again, we've all had hundreds and thousands of hours of yakkety-yak on these things. The good thing is that you guys have it all as documented database, which would be exceedingly interesting if I was doing, for example, a statistical study of formation of Kuhnian paradigms, or whatever.

But the thing is that on the level you're doing this thing (and on the level we're doing this thing in the "Nordic scene"), it eventually has to drift towards the standards academic discussion.

That means articles, publications, preferably peer-reviews and in the end compiling monographies and books for studying the stuff. And when we compare the impressive list of articles you have with the overwhelming amount of text mass you have, I'm sorry to say, in the end you have rather small part of this chat organized in an accessible form. Referrable form.

As long as the mass of ideas and brainwork you folks have done is not in a referrable form, it's very hard to integrate into academic discussion. Which is important to folks like me (as I'm thinking of doctoral thesis here) and J. Tuomas, who want to do our literature surveys before stirring the pot any more in this phase.

So that's how I'd increase accessibility of this discussion, which in turn would include its evaluability (is there such a word?) and disseminability. Same goes to the folks in Alarums and Excursions community as well.

(It seems that four postings have appeared to the thread since I begun writing this. Oh dear.)

- Markus

Ron Edwards wrote: All of which violates the basic principle of posting here, which is specifically to engage in constructive discourse.

You're not interested in constructive discourse; as you put it, you're a de-constructor. Which is fine, as an observer. Here's the tricky part, though. You apparently want to carry out your research interest in an interventional, rather than observational way.

You're also, obviously, free to post as you please. But I hope it's clear that there is no way that your posts can be taken seriously by anyone else here. When you post, it's an experiment upon the other people in a thread, not participating with them.

A more correct interpretation would be "a multitude of previous theory suggestions by other people than myself have been rejected by members of the Forgean paradigm due to the suggestions not fitting the GNS model, not because of any possible flaws the ideas contained. The method of rejection is invariably a 'look, we've discussed it here[/] years ago to conclusion, followed by ignoring any arguments to the contrary."

I believe I'm going to disagree. I think the process for getting traction in the theory conversations remains the same as it has always been: post about actual play, or design a game system to prove your ideas. The core of the Forge is a design community disaffected and skeptical of conventional RPG design wisdom. And the way to shake up the community is empirically with play, and with design results. As the Forge user-base has grown, some folks have chosen to focus on theory. Don't make the mistake of thinking your theories, unbolstered by actual play or design, have any less traction than those of any other similar theorist.

Paul

Bah.

"prohibit me from taking notes"
=
"go ahead and ban me then"

... which is where I'm with Vincent. I can't help you with your goals here. Tuomas, as I said, take all the notes you want to take. I hope they include the data that you have not been prohibited from doing anything as you see fit.

Eero, your fine post is misplaced, I think.

Best,
Ron

Ron, that wasn't a "ban me, I dare you" statement. Please do not read to my words what isn't there.

What I was saying is that my goals were not in any way in conflict with the purposes or rules of this place, but if knowing that the dialogue will be refered to in research, you had all the rights to say "no" to it. As you clearly have.

The research will probably now state that "No results could be gained from the Forge, as the administration considered the subject of discussing the possibility of theory favoritism to be against the forum's purposes." Does this sound correct to you?

Just to prevent any further misunderstandings - since they seem to happen so easily here - I will cancel my registration, and stick to reading (without taking any notes).

-Jiituomas

[EDIT: It's probably easier that someone removes me from the register. I can't seem to find any way to do it myself.]

Jiituomas: This is important so pay attention. You haven't yet launched a thread about the topic you want to discuss.

Until you do, we are helpless to discuss it.

-Vincent

Tuomas, I'm going to say it one more time.

You are not prohibited from taking data from discussions at the Forge, nor from participating in discussions in the interest of collecting data.

My statement clarified some of the responses you're sure to receive in doing so, mainly being ignored by at least of the participants now that they understand your agenda. That statement was a favor to you. You're welcome.

No one is banned or removed from registry at the Forge, nor prohibited from posting. If you don't even understand that about this site, then any insights you purport to draw from its function are already working from an invalid foundation.

Your threat to characterize the Forge in your statement in your research is therefore, bluntly, based on telling a lie.

There is nothing further that I, as moderator, can possibly say.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: You are not prohibited from taking data from discussions at the Forge, nor from participating in discussions in the interest of collecting data.

My statement clarified some of the responses you're sure to receive in doing so, mainly being ignored by at least of the participants now that they understand your agenda. That statement was a favor to you. You're welcome.

No one is banned or removed from registry at the Forge, nor prohibited from posting. If you don't even understand that about this site, then any insights you purport to draw from its function are already working from an invalid foundation.

Your threat to characterize the Forge in your statement in your research is therefore, bluntly, based on telling a lie.

I'm sad to see this happening. Like Eero, I myself hover somewhere between the Nordic circle and the Forge with respect to thoughts on roleplaying, and would seriously like to see more interaction between the two.

In that interest, I beg all sides to cool off. And I want to clear up one thing that I think gave the whole discussion its bad start:

Tuomas, the thread you are referring to was shut down, because it was veering in at least three different directions, which is discouraged here. It's in the etiquette at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=1604:

Straying from the topic of the current thread is treated differently. We are all in favor of discussions mutating and covering other topics in role-playing games. We ask that you start a new thread if the topic changes too much, referencing the other thread in your first post on the new thread. If a moderator or administrator thinks that a thread has gone too far off-topic, he may "split" the thread, creating two threads out of the one.

Hi Toumas,

To step back from the attack-counterattack thing that appears to be developing, let's try it from this stand point:

-The Forge is about the discussion of roleplaying games, with emphasis on support for independently owned games

-If you care to share experiences, views, theory, or ideas with regards to roleplaying games, that is welcome. That is the point of discussion on this site. You may find folks who agree or disagree with you for varying reasons. That is to be expected.

-If you care to simply observe and deconstruct the fashion in which discussion occurs, that is also acceptable. Discussion of the deconstruction has no place here, but you are free to start one elsewhere via your own means.

-You are also free to privately message anyone you care to interview or ask further details of. They may or may not care to take time to assist you.

Now, as to the meat of this whole thread:

-You have stated that you hold views different than the majority of the active posters here. Ok.

-You have stated that such views are stifled from being expressed. Ok.

-Various folks have asked, "Can you express these views? We would like to hear, discuss, and possibly learn from them?" This means that several posters are willing to hear you out- to not stifle you from making your ideas known. This is constructive discussion and a vital part of this site.

So, now, you have a few choices. You can sit back, and continue to pile data. Worthwhile, and everyone's happy. You can also share some of these other views, observations, and theories regarding roleplaying with us, and participate in the community discussion. We may not all agree, but many of us would very much like to hear and learn about things we may not be aware of. I am one of those people.

So, you are being invited to participate and share, if you care to do so. If not, that is fine as well.

Chris

Chris is dead on target here, man. Listen to him. I realize you think your mode of communication is "too blunt"--but it's not--it's just that you're not gettin' the idea that why you participate is up to you and you're welcome to participate.

(and if you wanna take notes and stuff that's fine too)

-Marco

Hello,

Tuomas, I appreciate your latest post.

Shall we let this thread stand as a testimony to the fact that we were attempting to hear one another, and then move on from there?

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Shall we let this thread stand as a testimony to the fact that we were attempting to hear one another, and then move on from there?

I realize (cool it Ron!) that this thread is in the process of closure, but I just got here. My intent is not to re-open a thread that (for many reasons) just didn't really go anywhere positive.

---Tuomas,

As you know from reading scads of threads, I'm interested in very much the sorts of things you are. Deconstruction, discourse-analysis, and the rest. I'm on something of a structuralism binge right now -- sort of a retro thing, I suppose -- but have in the past been very focused on practice (Bourdieu), performance (Ortner), and so on. I have posted on these things quite often.

Sometimes I have been attacked. Most of the time, I have not been. I have found, in fact, that the Forge is surprisingly open to such discussions.

Eero has remarked on my ritual article as an example of a theory which is not part of the dominant Forge discourse; to put that differently, I think it is very much not part of the master-narrative that is proposed by a lot of folks encountering the Forge briefly. As I say at the outset, and as I have said repeatedly since, I think that the Edwardsian Big Model has some grave flaws. I have since come to the conclusion, personally, that the Big Model does very much what it says, but that the master narrative here makes it very much something other than that. This is a fascinating question of the extension of discursive hegemony, and one I'd love to debate.

I should note in passing that I personally consider the ritual article nothing but a bare sketch of an analysis that one of these days I really need to get around to completing, but that's the nature of academic life.

Quite recently, Mendel [Wormwood] started a thread about "Deceit" that threatened to go horribly awry. For me, this was an exciting occasion to examine the mystifications at work in RPG discourse, on the Forge and elsewhere. For others, this was a potentially violently destructive way of examining anything at all, and certainly something that would shatter personal bonds and friendships. We debated this for quite a while, and ultimately came to a rough, but functional, midpoint.

Now after all that, I think I am living proof that there is no reason whatever that non-Big Model approaches, academic perspectives, and in some broad sense deconstructive analyses are, or can be, welcome here. I do think there was a misunderstanding in that last thread, as several have mentioned, because the norm here is that discussions of how the Forge works or thinks go in Site Discussion.

BUT....

If, as I suspect, you are suggesting that "how the Forge works" is itself a theoretical question, requiring analytical rather than purely practical models; and if, as I suspect, you are suggesting that "how the Forge works" is itself a proposition having implications for the nature of Forge-based theory,

THEN

I agree with you. Usually that placement would be correct, because usually this forum (Site Discussion) is used for practical purposes of one sort or another. If you mean by it a much broader discourse-analysis of the nature of this forum and its discursive structures, you're right --- that doesn't belong in Site Discussion, as currently formulated, and shifting it there could appear to be a dismissal. It was, I promise you, not intended so.

So THEREFORE....

If that's the sort of thing, roughly, that you're interested in, I have a suggestion.

Send me a PM. Let's start there. We'll discuss it a bit, and I can try to help formulate the topic in a way that has some sort of reasonably clear home, so that we won't get pointless debates about whether it's in the right place. I'd guess that RPG Theory is the place, but let's see. Then you and I will compose a first post, or I will, or you will, or whatever, and we will debate this. If everyone else thinks we're yammering about nothing, it makes no difference: you and I can have a great discussion. I bet you that Eero will join in, at the very least.

I promise. Really I do. There is a place for this here. If there isn't, I'm going to be very, very upset about it, having had a bunch of illusions shattered. But I'm pretty damn sure that this is possible to debate and discuss here, in a profitable manner.

Okay, sure, it's reflexive, but that's what makes it fun, right?

Looking forward to your PM....

P.S. If you wonder whether I'm messing with you or something, start by PM-ing Eero (in Finnish, if you like), and if he doesn't back up my bona fides I'll kick his butt. :)

OOPS!

Correction to one paragraph above:

I wrote: Now after all that, I think I am living proof that there is no reason whatever that non-Big Model approaches, academic perspectives, and in some broad sense deconstructive analyses are, or can be, welcome here.

Now after all that, I think I am living proof that there is no reason whatever that non-Big Model approaches, academic perspectives, and in some broad sense deconstructive analyses are not, or cannot be, welcome here.

Am I the only person to notice that Tuomas apparently only wants a conversation with Ron on this topic?

Or maybe not. Lumpley and Clinton have gotten responses, too. But once Ron weighed in, that seemed to be it. It's time to bring out the can of hermeneutic of suspicion when the experiences or responses of regular Forge posters is discounted in favor of the "elite".

Mark D. Eddy wrote: Am I the only person to notice that Tuomas apparently only wants a conversation with Ron on this topic?

Mark, just so you know: I took the discussions to email and PMs with the people who were interested in exploring the question further.

Just as Lehrich above stated, I've been considering the matter on this thread closed. I'll be happy to discuss the questions further with you too, Mark, just not here.

-Jiituomas (who still had an hour before the train leaves)

Thanks for clearing that up for me.