Recent discussions have led me to think a lot about what it means to tell people that they cannot reject anything that another player contributes to the narration of a game.

Here's how I see it. When something is narrated in the game, it goes through two possible evaluations on its way to becoming an important part of the SIS. First, does it become a part of the SIS at all (hereafter "Authorized as Text")? Second, when it is part of the SIS, is it important (hereafter "Authorized to have Meaning")?

Yeah, you might want to take a quick glance over Meaning at the Beginning, Middle and End right about now.

If you operate under Meaning at the Beginning, then these two evaluation steps happen at the same time, and influence each other. Even if you think it's perfectly fine for Doc Killagain's thanatos-beam to instantly kill his minion, you may object because you don't want to set a precedent that could later mean that Killagain's ray can be used to instantly kill your character.

Accepting Text becomes harder under MatB, because it strongly implies Accepting Meaning. The contrapositive is that Rejecting Meaning becomes harder, because it implies Rejecting Text, a process that is often restricted closely by System.

Meaning at the End breaks that link completely. Accepting or Rejecting the Meaning of narration happens later. This makes Accepting Text dead easy. You can accept anything, unless you're actually worried about the specific thing being said, right now, this very instant.

So, here's my question: Is Text qua Text ever the focus of concern? Or is it the matter of apparent concern because of its uses as a tool for impacting later negotiations of authority over the SIS? Or, short-form: Do people care about Text, or only about Meaning?

Are you talking about text and subtext?

That is, "Doc Killagain's thanatos-beam kills Igortron" is the text; "Doc Killagain can kill anyone at will" is the subtext.

Yeah, sometimes people object to the text.

The heroes walk into a bar, just as its closing. Joss starts interrogating the bartender. Kendi gets fed up with his lies, and shoots him.

Joss's player says, "DAMMIT! Take that back, you idiot. How are we going to get to Alpha Wolf with Kendi killing all the witnesses?"

Kendi's player says, "Alright, sorry... I guess I was getting bored."

Some games don't allow this. "You say it, it happens." Some do, as you point out.

No, I'm not talking about subtext. I don't even have a definition for subtext. I'm talking about meaning, which I defined in the referenced link as (roughly): "The extent to which a past fact can be used as part of a player appeal for authority to narrate future facts."

So in your example "We're never going to get to Alpha Wolf" is an anticipation of the GM (probably) appealing to the killing of the bartender to lend authority to the future narration that all your leads have dried up (or been shot).

That's probably either Meaning at the Beginning (because the player is establishing, right here, right now, that this is going to hamper investigation) or an anticipation of Meaning in the Middle, where the GM will refer to that at a later date, only then asking people to evaluate whether it lends him authority.

If Joss's player had an iron-clad guarantee that killing the bar-tender would never be talked about, ever again, throughout the course of the entire game... would this argument develop?

TonyLB wrote: If Joss's player had an iron-clad guarantee that killing the bar-tender would never be talked about, ever again, throughout the course of the entire game... would this argument develop?

Who cares? I'm asking a hypothetical, to get at one question first.

I tried to think of a text that has no meaning... I couldn't think of one.

ANY fact that people remember can be used as a source of authority for future facts. And you never know which ones people are going to remember. Whether that source of authority is actually enough to CHANGE future facts is a reasonable question, but immaterial, I think, to your topic.

So the iron-clad guarantee you cite is impossible, as I see it.

P = Joss's player gets an iron-clad guarantee
Q = Joss's player objects to Kendi's action

Given -P, does P imply Q? In standard symbolic logic, the answer is a trivial "yes". It's interesting to note that in standard symbolic logic, given -P, P implies -Q as well. There's a name for the paradox but I can't remember it at the moment.

The fact that Joss's player objects means that, by definition, the event in question has meaning FOR HIM, even if not for the rest of the players.

Remember that each player, in addition to participating in the SIS, also partakes of the UNSHARED imaginary space; the part of his own experience that happens in his own mind but is not shared. Meaning does not occur ONLY in the SIS.

TonyLB wrote: Who cares? I'm asking a hypothetical, to get at one question first.

It seems to me that this is a question of feedback mechanisms. It would be good to have one of Vincent's pictures here, with the players, and the SIS, and arrows going back and forth.

If you have MatE, for example, there is no arrow back from the SIS to the player input. So, the explanation of what happened -- the text -- is always created after the players and mechanics have created an outcome, retroactively. So if I play PTA, and we get into a conflict situation where we fight someone we fought before who has a particular weakness, the previous text -- the determined weakness -- has no direct link back to influence the outcome of the conflict. Instead, we roll the dice. If we win, we retroactively (Meaning at the End) determine that the guy was defeated through that weakness. Or maybe something completely different.

Not so in D&D. If we all know from the start that acid surpasses a construct's damage reduction (Meaning at the Beginning), and the time comes that we face a construct and use acid, it makes a difference. Now, if we create a precedent by GM fiat, it either comes in as a house rule (MatB) or a spontaneous modifier (MitM).

Finally, if in HeroQuest we fight a golem, and I want to augment my attack with "Spell of Acid 5M," I talk it over with the Narrator. We figure it out together. Does it apply? That's Meaning in the Middle.

So I think Tony is right on here. There is a distinction between text and meaning, or between Color and System, if you want. It's not always clear, and especially MitM blurs the distinction, but it's still a useful categorization.

Overall, I think we're still getting confused on the definition of "Meaning" here, so let's keep Tony's definition in mind.

Can we define "text" as well? Is it the SIS, or is it verbal input that may affect the SIS, or both?

Provisionally, let's say that the SIS itself (including all system-features which may have a later impact, like "hit points" and other mechanics) is Text. The verbal input that may affect the SIS is "Provisional Text."

The act of Accepting Text makes Provisional Text into Text. The act of Rejecting Text refuses to allow Provisional Text to become Text.

Does that sound workable as a definition?

Given how you've defined "meaning," I think it's pretty clear that characteristics of the text outside of that "meaning" can also be a concern. Especially, consistency with established facts.

"I shoot the bartender."

"You don't have a gun. You ditched it down a drainpipe in the last scene, remember?"

Authority for future facts (that the bartender is dead, or even that the character now possesses a gun) isn't the issue; consistency with past facts is. It would remain an issue even under the hypothetical iron-clad guarantee.

Here are a few other possible examples of not-authorized-as-text:

"I shoot the bartender."

"Wait for your turn to act; we're still resolving Joss's interrogate skill use."

"I shoot the bartender."

"You're out of tokens, you can't initiate any character actions now."

"I shoot the bartender."

"Tonight the meter of Shakespeare's in force,
So please speak only in the proper form.
To five iambs, not one beat more nor less,
Your uttered verses must henceforth conform."

- Walt

TonyLB wrote: Provisionally, let's say that the SIS itself (including all system-features which may have a later impact, like "hit points" and other mechanics) is Text. The verbal input that may affect the SIS is "Provisional Text."

The act of Accepting Text makes Provisional Text into Text. The act of Rejecting Text refuses to allow Provisional Text to become Text.

Does that sound workable as a definition?

Walt, I see how players have authority to do those things. No question.

I'm not sure I see how that translates into motive to do so. You seem to be speaking mostly about authority, rather than motive. Am I missing something?

I'm intrigued by the question of whether authority imparts motive: Whether gathering and applying authority can be a wholly independent motive, without recourse to any other purposes that the authority can be directed toward achieving.

I'm going to winge again about the idea of authority, like I did in the other thread, since I just see investment.

I'll give an real life example: The other month we were sifting through treasure collected in out D&D campaign (rotating GM's). Some treasures from an old game of mine were written on paper, with a removable tab to remove once you found out the secret properties of the treasure.

One of them was a potion and I chuckled when I saw it, as they would have identified it by now I just said 'Ah, that's the poison potion I put in, hoping someone would just suck it down thinking it was a healing potion! Oh well, may as well chuck it now!'

Okay, this statement isn't an authorisation for anything. What it shows is that I was invested in the idea that this potion was a poison (as part of my investment in throwing some danger into the PC's lives).

So what does one player say 'Hey, I've been wanting to work with poison...I'll use that to poison my weapons!'. And he had been planning to use poison, and this comes up and he turns it around right to what he wants!

And not that I mind (I'm impressed, actually!), but he's got me! And it's nothing to do with authority...if I were giving out authority to do something, I'd be able to withdraw that authority without any consequence at all.

But I can't here. I haven't assigned authority...the reason his action is so cool is because I'm invested in it. I've invested in the idea that this potion is poison. I may as well have put down ten bucks on the table and said 'If I back out on asserting this potion is poison, shred my ten bucks!'. That isn't a fact that has some sort of authority...it's a fact I have a stake in. And he built his gamist tactics on top of my stake (which is way cool). It only seems like authority because you can say 'Well, Callan will assert authoritively to anyone that this potion is poison. After all, he's got ten bucks riding on this! So I'll just rely on that to get advantage X!'

I really should start a thread on this, but I thought I'd air the idea here incase it suits this thread (if not, I'll bug out).

Heya,

Let me give a go at Callan's situation here and Tony can correct me if I'm wrong. The appeal to authority in the instance you talked was the other player saying, "Can I use this potion to poison my weapons?" The past facts were: there was a potion in their possession, they have the capability to identify it, and the PC has the ability to work with poisons. The rules state that you indeed can poison weapons with the right materials and skill, so the player is free to carry out his action. The fact "The old potion we forgot about" now has meaning because "Player X has used it to poison his weapons."

The appeals to authority wasn't to you as a player, but to past facts and the system which allows weapon poisoning. This is meaning at the begining that Tony outlined. The rules say weapon+poison= poisoned weapon, therefore he can use the potion as he wants.

Peace,

-Troy

Noon wrote: And it's nothing to do with authority...if I were giving out authority to do something, I'd be able to withdraw that authority without any consequence at all.

Heya Tony,

I think this is dead wrong. When you assign authority and then withdraw it, you very much do cause consequences. Socially destructive consequences, usually. In fact, people go through incredible hand-springs not to do any such thing. And here's where I further disagree with Troy (I'm just disagreeable today, I guess): The poison example absolutely is an appeal to you as a player. And it's an appeal that you had to choose to honor or deny that the poison potion was a good argument for poison weapons.

So what does Investment mean, in terms of authority, meaning, motive and text? Is it a motive to find meaning in a specific text?

If a player appeals to you for a poison blade, using the poison-text as justification, are you more likely to grant that authority than if they appeal to you for a cursed zombie blade, using the voodoo-text as justification?

I think that the answer there is "Of course I am... I'm more invested in the fact of the poison." But does "invested" mean anything beyond that? Or is it synonymous with "I am motivated to grant appeals to authority based on that text"?

I think your ransom model is one way of persuading people to give you authority. It's not the only way. And I certainly don't think that granting authority is a subset of ransom-activities.

Let's say I want authority for the statement that my character has a ring of infinite wishes. There are many, many ways I could go about getting that authority from other players:

• "If you don't give me a ring of infinite wishes, I will start singing one-billion bottles of beer on the wall, and not stop."
• "You said you were going by the random treasure charts... look, right there, I rolled 666 on d1000. Ring of infinite wishes. Pay up."
• "If I had that ring, we could totally explore the question of how my flawed mortal character deals with unlimited power. Wouldn't that be neat?"
• "I have quested, far and near, through the glowing black-fire caves of Glorch, to the high pinnacles of Theraavon where the ice-pygmies dwell, to find this ring of power, that I might give it as a bridal gift to my beloved, who marries my arch-nemesis this very evening. Only thus may I show the depth of my affection, while still maintaining my honor by not opposing the wedding."
• "What's the big deal? You're still the GM. It's not like unlimited wishes are going to give me enough power to derail anything. I just want to have some fun."

I see (pretty clearly, for me) that some of these are "put someone over a barrel" situations, and some of them aren't. But they're all very clearly appealing for authority to narrate the SIS.

Do you see them all as "your over a barrel"? Or do you see some of them as not appealing for authority? Or something else?

Hi Callan

What you seem to be saying is that because we're not forced to obey this so-called authority--we always have a choice--it's not really authority at all, so we should call it something else.

The thing is, I think you're confusing authority with force. Authority *always* requires the acknowledgement of those subject to it--without that acknowledgement, it doesn't exist.

Force, on the other hand, is indifferent to the acknowledgement or otherwise of those it's used against. That's what 'force' means.

What 'authority' means is exactly what I see both you & Tony talking about: something that's binding only as long as, and so far as, each of the bound parties agree to be bound (whether that agreement is conscious or unconscious, given freely or coerced, or whatever).

Your examples of investment are, to me, all explorations into the nature of SIS-related authority, & the different ways it can be derived. That's valuable in its own right, but in trying to set them up in opposition to the concept of authority per se I think you're tying yourself into semantic knots where, logically, none exist.

TonyLB wrote: Do people care about Text, or only about Meaning?

Do people care about the SIS, or only about the extent to which the SIS can be used as a source for authority to change the SIS in the future?

Victor Gijsbers wrote: Reformulated in such a way, the answer seems to me dead simple: we care most about the SIS. We wouldn't care about changing the SIS if we did not care about the SIS, right?

TonyLB wrote: But I disagree with you. I care intensely about my ability to contribute to the SIS, and I don't give a tinker's damn about the SIS itself.

I think you're weird that way, Tony...

Because being able to add that element to the SIS (and have it appreciated and validated) is a real interaction, between real people. Whereas the cowboy and the gangster are fictional. They're tools at best.

I like some of my tools. I think Vanessa Faust, for instance, is a great character: She's sly and she's evil and she's just close enough to being right all the time that it makes it really hard for anyone to dismiss her. All of that means that (in the context of the game I'm playing) people encourage me to bring her in and to do all sorts of wacky things that they'd never consider letting me do if she weren't so entertaining. She's a good tool.

I don't care whether she wears boxers or briefs. I don't care whether she likes sushi or tempura. These things are completely irrelevant to her usefulness as a tool for the social interactions between the real, physical, players.

Does that make more sense of what I'm saying?

Makes sense to me, Tony. I appreciate that style of play, myself.

(Sometimes. Other times I want full "immersion" and such. It ain't a religion.)

TonyLB wrote:
Does that make more sense of what I'm saying?

Victor wrote

First, the equation of 'meaning' with 'authority' is very unnatural. Obviously, on a very natural meaning of 'meaning', the meaning of a scene may be that Jim chose the good of the community over his personal friendship,...

...whereas the narration can only be appealed to for establishing causal facts concerning the physical outcome of the conflict.

Tony, it just occurred to me:

This may be exactly what you're talking about when you say in Capes:

You can DO anything you want. But you can't ACHIEVE anything you want.

I'm not going to start talking about Capes again.

It's pointless.

Hi charles, I'm quite sure I don't get what you're saying. I was pointing to the fact that on some natural (natural to speakers of English) definitions of 'meaning', there may be obvious (obvious to the players of the hypothetical game) situation in which the meaning of an event in the SIS is something different from the 'way in which the event can be appealed to for authority'. As far as I can see, the fact that interpretations may often differ does not have anything to do with this semantic claim I was making?

Facts only become important once they have meaning (or perhaps more properly, potential meaning?) attached to them by the participants.

Hi Tony and Charles,

I'm just not comfortable with the word authority. I'd prefer something like "appealing for consent to narrate the SIS". I just think it's an important difference in personal dynamics.

This is how I think of authority: Have you ever read about the funny occasions where a captain is ordering around his troops in formation, but then walks off, leaving them in formation. And then some lower rank guy just sneaks up behind them, so they can't see him. And he starts ordering them around. And they do it.

He was appealing for authority. He wasn't appealing for consent. He wasn't saying 'I'm a low rank guy like you guys...now do these manouvers!'.

Consent requires a certain two way honesty on both sides about what's wanted from both parties. Authority isn't like that at all, authority is like an accepted empty void waiting for someone to step into it, like in my example. I don't think that typifies roleplay relationships at all (though perhaps some groups do it that way...dunno if it's possible to really keep up though).

I'm stuffing up Tony's thread a bit here, taking up space getting all niggly on this (sorry). But I don't think authority really represents the relationship involved between players. And without authority being involved, I mention investment and ransom, to show how things are made to happen when faceless authority isn't involved.

And Tony, yeah, I see all those examples as barrel examples! I'll go into that further if you think it wont derail the thread (if you want me to, tell me which you think are barrels and which aren't).

Vaxalon wrote:

TonyLB wrote:
Does that make more sense of what I'm saying?

It makes MORE sense... but you DO seem to care that she's right all the time, and that's text too, just like boxers or briefs.

Heya,

Quote:
Facts only become important once they have meaning (or perhaps more properly, potential meaning?) attached to them by the participants.

Meaning in the sense of TonyLB? (Because I submit that adding anything to the shared text that does not have meaning in the common sense of that word is pretty hard; try to say something meaningless to your roleplaying group and have it accepted as part of the narration.) That meaning is 'potential to generate further facts'.

Victor Gijsbers wrote: What you are claiming, then, is, among other things, that the final event of a game is never important. (Because it will not be used to generate further facts.) The epilogues of My Life with Master are not important. Well, I disagree.

Troy_Costisick wrote: For instance, the GM says that to get from Milbourne to Parlfrey the players must walk a dirt path. The players walk it and get there without incident. Does it matter that they traveled a path instead of a road? Does it matter that there might have been woods on one side? In that instance, no.

Heya,

TonyLB wrote:
GM: A-hah! Now, because you didn't take the extra day to go around to the Marble Way, the Cerulean tracking guild can follow your foot-prints. Suckers!
Players: Oh, no WAY... we totally would have been cautious about that. When you said dirt path, it had to be a packed dirt path, or you should have said something! That's just fiddling us about with word-play, man.

I see this all the time in many social contracts. People don't object to the SIS-contribution at the time, but if it becomes the basis for an appeal for Authority that they dislike then the past Text itself suddenly becomes objectionable in retrospect. "I would have been more concerned about it if I thought it would be important!"

Correct. The Meaning (in the terminology I'm using) is posited here in the moment that the road is used to support the addition of something new into the SIS.

TonyLB wrote:

Victor Gijsbers wrote: What you are claiming, then, is, among other things, that the final event of a game is never important. (Because it will not be used to generate further facts.) The epilogues of My Life with Master are not important. Well, I disagree.

Cool. That's a point we can explore. Suppose the MLwM epilogue rules say that my minion dies horribly at the hands of a mob. I agree with that, but narrate further that he dies setting off explosives that kill a large number of villagers (not including anyone's Connections, or any other element which could accord Meaning or affect any other Minion's Miserably-Ever-After endings). Is there any motive for another player to argue that narration?

TonyLB wrote: Correct. The Meaning (in the terminology I'm using) is posited here in the moment that the road is used to support the addition of something new into the SIS.

Vaxalon wrote: I say that ALL contributions to the SIS have the potential for setting precedent, by definition, and that it is impossible to accurately predict what another player will remember and (at a later time) find important enough to use as precedent.

Universalis is weird that way. Most games do not have a formal mechanic for that.

Hi Victor,

You wrote:

I strongly suspect that we are debating a non-issue here, which is created
by the very peculiar use of the word 'meaning' in this topic.

Is Text qua Text ever the focus of concern? Or is it the matter of apparent concern because of its uses as a tool for impacting later negotiations of authority over the SIS?

Or, short-form: Do people care about Text, or only about Meaning?

Yeah, I see where you're going there. But let me intrude a little of my own motivations for how I'm writing. This is not meant to say "This is the right way to discuss things." It's simply so that, as you folks read my posts, you can see why certain wordings are important to me, and like that.

I would like to deal, as much as possible, with measurable phenomena. I realize that not all of the RPG experience is measurable. But for teminology that is foundational (as these early posts in my hopefully-useful quest for a theory of Situation Development are) I'd like to stick as closely to what can be objectively observerd as we can.

So Text, by my definitions: I can measure that. Meaning, by my definitions: I can measure that. I can look at events from anyone's viewpoint, or from a wholly external viewpoint, and still see the same dynamics of Text and Meaning.

Once you hit questions like "significance", "importance" and "aesthetics", you're no longer in that measurable territory. Which means (I think) that much of the discussion will center around people's inability to use the terms in any common way, or to refer to any common experience. That's not the style of conversation that I get the most use out of, personally.

Hey Tony,

Keep the discussion centered as much as possible on the measurable? Fine with me.

My problem is, I see these words as all pretty much synonyms for each other:
significance
aesthetics (sometimes)
importance
care about
have it appreciated and validated

which makes nonsense out of any attempt I make to contribute a meaningful reply. When I can use the phrase 'care about' but not 'significant', what am I supposed to think I'm actually saying, when to me the two statements are identical?

If to me, X = Y, and you say 'You can use X here, but Y is totally off-limits' then I'm left with

X = ? Y = ?

An example:

When you say

I care intensely about my ability to contribute to the SIS, and I don't give a tinker's damn about the SIS itself

Absolutely. The moment I hit "care about" I knew I was out of measured territory (though possibly not out of measurable territory).

My hope is that, venturing into that uncharted territory, we can discuss the uncharted with a basis in the things that we can measure. And hopefully, through exploration, we can actually figure out whether there's something in this "care about" and "significance" and "aesthetics" that can be reasonably measured. The uncharted territory would then have a chart, because of our exploration of the theory. That process lets us advance on yet another area of the unknown, and explore it with common purpose.

I mean, just as a for-instance, suppose popular opinion ended up at: "Creative Agenda is expressed in the decisions players make about how to distribute Authority. Therefore Text does not impact Creative Agenda, but Meaning does (point for further discussion: is this true of Simulationism, or only Gamism and Narrativism?)" That would be a really strong design tool in my toolbox. Unfortunately, I don't think that particular example is true (or at least popular).

So yeah... this exploration is going to have to be fuzzy. We don't have terms yet. And I value contributions like "That's just not aesthetically pleasing to me", and "I couldn't play in a game where Text was unimportant until it had Meaning." But I will treasure the post where somebody says "What you're talking about is this measurable phenomenon", and everyone responds "Well, yeah, obviously, but that's just another way of saying what I've been telling you for twenty posts."

Heh... meta-parallels. I enjoy and appreciate this discussion, but I am hoping to have some outcome that I can appeal to for Authority (or at least theoretical leverage) in future discussions. I value the Meaning more than the Text.

Heya,

Here's my best attempt at an answer:

Or, short-form: Do people care about Text, or only about Meaning?

TonyLB wrote: Correct. The Meaning (in the terminology I'm using) is posited here in the moment that the road is used to support the addition of something new into the SIS.

Vaxalon, from a page back wrote:

TonyLB wrote: Correct. The Meaning (in the terminology I'm using) is posited here in the moment that the road is used to support the addition of something new into the SIS.

So what you're talking about is the quality of setting precedent.

I say that ALL contributions to the SIS have the potential for setting precedent, by definition, and that it is impossible to accurately predict what another player will remember and (at a later time) find important enough to use as precedent.

Hi Tony,

If you're interested in my opinion (which I'm no longer sure of) then take my earlier post

My take...is, people often DO care about establishing events into the SIS in and of itself--but only because they see this as synonymous with establishing significance. I see this as a tremendously important point, because it gives rise to the mistaken belief that once an (explict) event is established in the SIS, an (implicit) significance is also established, which leads to all kinds of messy complications later (like "breaking" the SIS). It can also lead to strenuous objections over the inclusion of seemingly trivial events, because what is really being objected to is the unspoken (& in this situation, unshared) significance the objector sees as being inserted along with that event. Which, because it's never articulated, can be wearying to resolve.

Callan: Yes, I think that the force of that precedent would be nigh-overwhelming in a social contract that favored precedent as the means of establishing the right to narrate. Do we agree that there are functional ways other than precedent to establish the right to narrate?


Charles: Whatever I've said that led you to think that I don't value your opinion, I would like to know so that I can humbly (and specifically) apologize for expressing myself poorly. Maybe by PM?

In any event, I agree whole-heartedly with your take on the matter. I think that peoples patterns of behavior confirm the SIS as a tool, rather than as a goal: even (and often especially) when they claim that it is a goal, rather than a tool.

But people disagree with me (and, I think, with you). And I am very much conscious of the fact that I could be wrong about this. If somebody's got a good explanation for how the SIS could be a satisfying goal in and of itself, I'm all ears.


Troy: Yeah, see... I'm not sure that human beings are quite as unfathomable as you think they are. Usually, if you dig a little, you'll find that we're very simple creatures on a decision-by-decision basis. We generally have motivations for what we do.

So I really am not sure I can agree with "People can emotionally care about anything they choose." I think that they have to have a reason. Are we just at a fundamental impasse on that?

TonyLB wrote: Callan: Yes, I think that the force of that precedent would be nigh-overwhelming in a social contract that favored precedent as the means of establishing the right to narrate. Do we agree that there are functional ways other than precedent to establish the right to narrate?

Heya :)

TonyLB wrote: Troy: Yeah, see... I'm not sure that human beings are quite as unfathomable as you think they are. Usually, if you dig a little, you'll find that we're very simple creatures on a decision-by-decision basis. We generally have motivations for what we do.

So I really am not sure I can agree with "People can emotionally care about anything they choose." I think that they have to have a reason. Are we just at a fundamental impasse on that?

Troy: Great! That's exactly the sort of question I'm trying to get at. Please elaborate!

Why do they care about the text, if not for its later meaning? What other motive is active?

Sometimes people care about the SIS not because it can be used as a precedent for later play, but because it has an aesthetic value of its own, divorced from strategic concerns. Sometimes, we are touched, or revolted, or excited, or pleased, or tickled, or angered by the text of the game.

For example, I remember a particularly powerful experience in an Amber game I ran quite a few years back. One of the PC's was visiting Tir-na Nog'th, the mirror realm of Amber, and she met the Tir' version of her father there... this mirror version, in contrast to the cold, domineering father she had in Amber, was warm and friendly, and asked after the health of herself and her friends. He was fatherly in all the best aspects of the term, and I remember seeing a tear come to the player's eye as we played through the scene.

After the session was over, I spoke with the player about that scene, and why it had been so moving. I was informed that his father had died while the player was an infant, and that the scene was bittersweet as a result. I tried to apologize, but he waved me off, saying that he would treasure that fifteen minutes of play forever. I felt honored to have been present, and to have participated in some small way in that moment.

Now I'm not saying a moment this powerful happens all the time, but most of the games I have been in have had moments that have moved me to a lesser extent.

The moment when Okhfels and Isadora had their first misunderstanding, when Okhfels thought Isadora was inviting him into her tent for something a bit more intimate than just a private conversation, that moment will always bring a smile to my face. Their relationship has changed a good deal since then, and using that scene for precedent at this point is probably out of the question, because other events have superseded it... but I would feel incensed if someone wanted to retcon it out of the SIS. It would cheapen it to me, drain it of some of its emotional value, if we were to say that it had never happened.

Interesting. Is that related to CA, or distinct from it?

I'd say it's related to CA, but then everything that happens in a game is at least related to CA, so the question seems kind of trivial. I must not be understanding it right.

Can you be more specific about what you are asking about?

Heya,

TonyLB wrote: Troy: Why do they care about the text, if not for its later meaning? What other motive is active?

Interesting. Is that related to CA, or distinct from it?

Maybe the answer to the question can be gleaned from the following observation: you can care about games that have ended.

You will, by definition, never be able to use the elements in the SIS of a game that has ended to establish new facts, because you are no longer adding to that SIS. But you can certainly cherish the memories of that game, and not just about the social situation, but also about the contents of the fictional world. If that is possible, then you cherish Text without Meaning.

Just a related thought, not terribly important: doesn't saying that players can appreciate Meaning but not Text, not amount to claiming that people cannot appreciate books?

I wonder if Tony has ever told a "No ****, there we were" story about a game that has ended.

Gotcha! And yes, I have, although almost all of them are (as Victor anticipated I would say) about the social situation as expressed in the flow of the SIS. But yeah, sometimes there are just moments in the SIS that give me warm fuzzies.

So, you've convinced me: It exists. Now... what is it? And how can games encourage it mechanically?

TonyLB wrote: Now... what is it? And how can games encourage it mechanically?