In The relationship between character, sheet, and play Fred (Vaxalon) wrote of character secrets not being part of the shared imagined space. I disagree.

I'm very sorry I missed this thread; my computer crashed the first weekend of April, and this past week I have finally been able to get online (somewhat sporadically, at that) and try to catch up with everything everywhere. So I'm late coming to the party, but I hope I can add something.

I think that if something is known to any one of the participants in the game and that something has any impact on the way any character is played or any event unfolds, it is present in the shared imagined space.

Good examples can be adduced from setting elements. In most games, we all agree that there are objects and places within the setting of which we may presently be unaware; we accept that there is secret information. There is this tacit understanding that the shared imagined space contains elements which I don't know, or which you don't know, but which someone knows. If the presence of the undiscovered secret door influences the way the referee moves the orcs (e.g., some of the orcs are not in the main battle force because they are covering the potential retreat through the secret door which they, but not the player characters, know to be there) then the secret door is part of the shared imagined space because some actions or events within it were impacted by its existence. Even if the rest of us never discover the door, even if the orcs we do face are sufficient in force to kill us all and the game ends here, that door existed.

In the same way, Fred describes a character who, according to his notes, is possessed by a demon. The other players are not told that the character is possessed by a demon, but the character's actions are predicated on that fact. How is the fact of the possession not part of the shared imagined space, if the actions of the character are built on that? Every player in the game knows what the character is doing. That we don't know it's because of that demon in him does not alter the fact that the presence of that demon is having very clearly observable impact on the game.

In OAD&D's Oriental Adventures rules it is possible to roll the detail about your character that there is an ancestral family alliance with some other family. That's the sort of detail that gets plopped on your sheet and oft times forgotten. However, rolling that detail increases the honor of the family, which has a mechanical impact on the character's relationships with non-player characters. It may be that the specific fact of this alliance will never arise in play; however, if my player knowledge of that alliance impacts my understanding of the character such that I play him a bit more noble, a bit more confident, a bit more cosmopolitan--if the unrevealed fact that my great great great great grandfather fought alongside Parsimonius the Great has any impact on my representation of the character at all, then that fact has impacted play, and so exists within the shared imagined space.

The same applies to what Jason was calling the "vision" for the character. Since my "vision" for my character is the definition of how I play him, the details of that vision are part of the shared imagined space to the degree that they are realized. That is, if I see my character as a future barbarian king, that doesn't make him a barbarian king; but it will impact how the character acts now, whether he is supposed to know this or not (that is, am I imagining that my character aspires to be the king, or am I imagining that events will conspire to thrust this role upon him?). I'm playing the guy I expect will be king, and I play him differently because of it.

To focus a bit more clearly, though,

let me quote what Fred wrote: There can be information on the character sheet that is important to play, but is not part of the SIS. The SIS is not the sum total of the game.

Heya,

I have to agree with you, MJ. The character sheet is the embodiment of the character in tangible reality. It is what the Imagined Character IS as far as mechanics go (I'm not dealing with personality and demeanor in this discussion). All his abilities and traits- known and unknown, used and unused- make up that character. Not everything on the character sheet necessarily has Meaning in the SIS, but it does exist in the SIS for all intents and purposes if solely for the reason the character exists in the SIS- even if it's not formally introduced.

Lots of things in the SIS do not have a formal introduction. Often things like gravity, the atmospheric make up, magnetic poles, the coloring of the human inhabitants, and so on and so forth are often taken for granted even though no one ever mentions them and they rarely come into play. Just as a character's proficiency at underwater basket weaving may never get utilized, it's still there.

Anyway, yeah, I think you have a great point, MJ.

Peace,

-Troy

Troy_Costisick wrote: Lots of things in the SIS do not have a formal introduction. Often things like gravity, the atmospheric make up, magnetic poles, the coloring of the human inhabitants, and so on and so forth are often taken for granted even though no one ever mentions them and they rarely come into play. Just as a character's proficiency at underwater basket weaving may never get utilized, it's still there.

M. J. Young wrote:
In the same way, Fred describes a character who, according to his notes, is possessed by a demon. The other players are not told that the character is possessed by a demon, but the character's actions are predicated on that fact.

In the same way, Fred describes a character who, according to his notes, is possessed by a demon. The other players are not told that the character is possessed by a demon, but the character's actions are predicated on that fact. How is the fact of the possession not part of the shared imagined space, if the actions of the character are built on that? Every player in the game knows what the character is doing. That we don't know it's because of that demon in him does not alter the fact that the presence of that demon is having very clearly observable impact on the game.

What about this angle.

What if I imagine Fred's character is possessed by a demon but I don't tell him. I role play my character according to my belief but no more. My actions in the game are part of the shared imagined space. Fred might wonder why I don't like him. He may wonder why I keep pouring holy water on him. As player I'm wondering how much more suggestive my actions have to be before my imagining does become part of the Shared imagined space?

The is the argument of the beard from philosophy (how many hairs does it take to be called a beard) but can explore the boundries of this idea. Information becomes public when it is communicated - but communications does not have to be direct.

One thing I like to put in games are bits of information that suggest something is happening. I've done no prep work for their to be anything there. I'm letting the suggestion lead players to fill in the rest of the picture in their minds (the matrix of Matrix Games). Players start looking for possibilities rather than figuring the odds.

Universalis is all about this flip in game direction.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

Surely all of the individual hints and cues that are openly communicated during play are part of the SIS. But as long as there are multiple possibilities for what those cues mean...the end result is not (yet).

Your pouring holy water on Fred's character is part of the SIS. But it could mean anything from "you think Fred's a vampire" to "you're an annoying little git".

So are we looping back to Tony's work on meaning here?

The facts of behaviour in the SiS are there, but the meaning hasn't yet been determined. On a sheet, in someone's mind, to me it doesn't matter until it's in the SiS.

And, of course, the meaning has to accord with everyone's vision of the SiS, bearing in mind the behaviour.

I think that this is clearly part of Fred's Individual Imaginary Space but until it goes through the standard offer and acceptance proceedure of System it can't be considered part of the SIS.

In fact, No Myth would seem to confirm this.

I hear what you're saying, Mike. But I don't agree that No Myth is just one point of view vs. other equally valid points of view. No Myth is the universal reality. The other points of view are additional layers / screens / filters tacked on top to hide that reality from the players.

Basically the politics that get injected here amount to asking the question, "Why do you delude yourself about the pre-existence of things when it's so unneccessary." The answer to which is that the player in questio does find it neccessary to enjoyment.

Well, first of all, I think agree with you definitionally, Ralph. I've always considered that the Shared Imaginary Space consists only of those things which are known to all the participants. i.e. The Shared Imaginary Space is an abstraction which is the intersection of everyone's Individual Imaginary Spaces (IIS).

Thus, I would say that by definition something which is secret between two players, one player, or anything less than the full group is (by my understanding) not part of the Shared Imaginary Space. On the other hand, you seem to attach an overwhelming importance to the SIS -- which is why Mike calls it political. To my mind, the SIS is an abstraction, while it is the Individual Imaginary Spaces that really matter. To each person, how they imagine what is going on is by definition what is important.

Valamir wrote: It clear that its not the act of No Myth that bothers those players. What bothers them is when they can no longer delude themselves about whether No Myth is being used.

That desired and sought after delusion doesn't change the universal fact that NOTHING actually exists in the game until it enters the SIS. Now a GM determined not to use No Myth may well voluntarily police himself from adding anything to the SIS that he hadn't created previously...but that's just the added layer of filter and screening that I mentioned above. It doesn't mean the No Myth principle has ceased to function.

What John said.

Before No Myth, we knew that it was all fictional. What No Myth said is that for some players it's fine to acknowledge that there's no "GM pre-existence" instead of trying to maintain that particular illusion. Fang presented it as a style of play, not so as to point out some underlying truth about RPG play. See, for instance: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6275

Mike

John Kim wrote: Well, first of all, I think agree with you definitionally, Ralph. I've always considered that the Shared Imaginary Space consists only of those things which are known to all the participants. i.e. The Shared Imaginary Space is an abstraction which is the intersection of everyone's Individual Imaginary Spaces (IIS).

Thus, I would say that by definition something which is secret between two players, one player, or anything less than the full group is (by my understanding) not part of the Shared Imaginary Space. On the other hand, you seem to attach an overwhelming importance to the SIS -- which is why Mike calls it political. To my mind, the SIS is an abstraction, while it is the Individual Imaginary Spaces that really matter. To each person, how they imagine what is going on is by definition what is important.

John Kim wrote:

Valamir wrote: It clear that its not the act of No Myth that bothers those players. What bothers them is when they can no longer delude themselves about whether No Myth is being used.

That desired and sought after delusion doesn't change the universal fact that NOTHING actually exists in the game until it enters the SIS. Now a GM determined not to use No Myth may well voluntarily police himself from adding anything to the SIS that he hadn't created previously...but that's just the added layer of filter and screening that I mentioned above. It doesn't mean the No Myth principle has ceased to function.

I should probably have a standard rant on this. The fact is that nothing actually exists in the game, period. You can delude yourself that things which are in the SIS are "real", but they're not. The fact is that you can go ahead and change any of them.

I would say that some degree of delusion is essential to the point of the fiction. You have to buy in and care about things which aren't real.

The highest level of permanence a fictional fact can have is when it is present in ALL players' IIS...i.e. it is part of the SIS.

Valamir wrote: BUT, the reason I attach even greater importance to the SIS is because it is at the level of the SIS that system happens. The functioning of the SIS effects everybody because it is both receiving from and transmitting to the IIS's. Trouble at the SIS level is a fast train to dysfunction, and so therefor I think it is essential to prioritize the SIS over the IISes. Prioritizing the IIS over the SIS is pretty much (to my mind) definitional of selfish play.

Valamir wrote:

John Kim wrote: The fact is that nothing actually exists in the game, period. You can delude yourself that things which are in the SIS are "real", but they're not. The fact is that you can go ahead and change any of them.

I would say that some degree of delusion is essential to the point of the fiction. You have to buy in and care about things which aren't real.

Clearly nothing is "real". That's why its called IMAGINARY space. Everything about the game world is fiction. But there are still identifiable "facts" about the game world. Those are "fictional facts" in the sense that they don't have an independent existance out side of the imaginary space of the game...but within that space they define the reality of the game.

If the fictional fact exists only in a single player's IIS, then it is extremely easy to change. That single player can do it without consulting anyone else but himself and typically without anyone else being aware that anything changed.

The more IISes that fictional fact exists in, however, the harder it is to change.

Mike Holmes wrote:

The highest level of permanence a fictional fact can have is when it is present in ALL players' IIS...i.e. it is part of the SIS.

That's subjective, and depends on how credibility is apportioned. In most games, the GM can alter what's in the SIS at will, for instance (for example, correcting a continuity error). There may be far more "permenance" to what he has in his IIS than to any particular thing entered into the SIS in certain groups. That is, the agreement might be that anything in his notes is "fictional fact." Maps can be said to be inviolable by agreement. Yes you don't have to do any of these things, but doing so is no different than any other sort of apportionment of credibility.

Mike

John Kim wrote: OK, now we're back into disagreement. The SIS can't transmit or receive anything. It's just an abstraction. I think you're talking more about social actions -- what Victor Gijsbers addressed in his thread <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=14893">Shared Imagined Space, Shared Text. Just to be clear: Imaginary Space is what's in your head. Text is what you actually say.

Stuff can be communicated between people without entering the SIS -- for example, by note passing in a tabletop game or by basically any action in a large-area LARP. Being an abstraction, the SIS is fairly volatile. For example, let's say a new person joins the game. He gets some basic introductions to the situation and is then accepted. Suddenly a whole bunch of things which were in the SIS now are not, because the new player doesn't know them.

How easy something is to change depends on the system and contract. Particularly in a tabletop game, it is always trivial to declare a change. For example, I could say "Actually, this world has three moons." The difficulty comes from whether people accept this, not from the difficulty of my moving my lips.

The ease of change depends on what we think of as real, not the other way around.

has been basic bog standard stuff for as long as Illusionist GM tactics have been around.

Again, you're talking about certain sorts of credibility apportionments. Are you honestly saying that never has there been an agreement between players and GM that there will be no alteration of things agreed to be fact in a manner such as saying that a map is inviolate? That all GMs will always change the map if it suits them and this is always allowed and expected by all groups? There are no CAs in which it would be a violation of the social contract, and highly dysfunctional for the GM to do such a thing?

Well, let's assume that you're correct. What does it matter what's "default" or "fundamental?" Why bother discovering that. I think it's just a perspective, personally, but even if you're right...so what? What does that prove or get us. In the end we still have the Lumpley Principle telling us what system is. We still know that it's all fiction. What good is labeling one sort of fiction "default?" When, in fact, for most players what's "default" is all of those "extra" layers?

Mike

Valamir wrote:

John Kim wrote: Stuff can be communicated between people without entering the SIS -- for example, by note passing in a tabletop game or by basically any action in a large-area LARP. Being an abstraction, the SIS is fairly volatile. For example, let's say a new person joins the game. He gets some basic introductions to the situation and is then accepted. Suddenly a whole bunch of things which were in the SIS now are not, because the new player doesn't know them.

That's a whole seperate topic worthy of a whole seperate discussion. There are all kinds of interesting questions to answer there. If the note gets passed all the way around the table at different times is it then part of the SIS? Are there seperate smaller mini SISes between each potential grouping of IISes? If so how large and persistant can those be relative to the main SIS before signs of dysfunction arise? Does the SIS really go away simply because a new player joins and not return until the new player knows 100% of what the other players knew? Or is the SIS exactly the same at it was and the new player just gradually overlaps his IIS with the others bit by bit. If so what does that say about the necessity of having the SIS as currently understood be identified as shared universally among all the other players...does it change things, or is just a special case that's out side of the usual rule?

All those are fascinating. None of them are really relevant to this thread, however.

M. J. Young wrote: There is this tacit understanding that the shared imagined space contains elements which I don't know, or which you don't know, but which someone knows. If the presence of the undiscovered secret door influences the way the referee moves the orcs (e.g., some of the orcs are not in the main battle force because they are covering the potential retreat through the secret door which they, but not the player characters, know to be there) then the secret door is part of the shared imagined space because some actions or events within it were impacted by its existence.

M. J. Young wrote: Also, in this regard, the fact that no one else ever has, does, or will look at my character sheet does not make it any less an authority in this sense. You suggested (if I understood you aright) that the character sheet serves to remind you of the character's personality, abilities, and other details. That is exactly what an authority does: it reminds us of what we have already accepted as true, real, or agreed.

Hey Mike,

For the same reason we break everything else concerning role-playing into component parts around here. It's what we do.

Stripping this down to the base layer provides an understanding of how the elements interact. You should then have a better idea of how to layer those Rules Gimmicks back over the base layer in order to create a certain play experience.

Anyway, not much else to say on my part except that I'm in 100% agreement with Ralph on this.

-Chris

What is relevant here is when these two do not match up. Thus I think the new player is a relevant situation. By the definition of #2, adding a new player to the group will mean that anything she doesn't know isn't a part of the SIS anymore.

xenopulse wrote:
In old-school groups (like mine), it's the GM who connects everything. There's nothing that he doesn't know that counts. If we players talk while he's out of the room, it doesn't enter play. We have to run it through him. So there's a portal, if you will. A credibility portal into the official SIS. Do all players share all information? No. But it's part of the social contract that the GM is the center figure of the SIS, and everything needs to go through him.

John is right; we clearly have distinct concepts of the Shared Imagined Space at work here.

There's a door in the room. Ralph's character is about to open it. I'm the referee. I know what's behind the door. Ralph is not certain. So Ralph listens at the door. I consider what it is he might hear, and he hears something--let's say he hears hoarse breathing. At this moment, it's clear that whatever is behind the door is breathing heavily and noisily. Still, I know what's behind the door, and Ralph does not. There's certainly a valid argument that "what's behind the door" is not yet part of the shared imagined space, but that "something breathing heavily" is.

It happens, though, that "what's behind the door" is Mike's character gasping for air, and Mike knows it, too. He hasn't said anything, because our play style requires a character to know something in order for the player to be told. So Mike and I know that Mike's character is behind the door that Ralph's character is about to open.

The quandary that this raises is, what is behind the door?

• The only thing that is in the shared imagined space is "something that is breathing heavily", because until Ralph is let in on the secret, it's not true.• Mike's character is behind the door because Mike and I know he's there, even if Ralph has not yet discovered this; the fact that Mike knows he's there prevents me from changing it.• Even if Mike had not been in on the secret, once attention is focused on what's behind the door, whatever it is that I am imagining as being behind the door is now in the shared imagined space, even if Ralph never opens the door.


It's difficult, but let me offer this: I have been in many games in which we did not open that door. After the game, sometimes, someone has asked the referee what was behind the door. Always the referee had an answer to that question, and always we treated that answer as being "what was really there" in the shared imagined space.

That suggests to me that we all shared as accepted and credible that there was something behind that door the precise nature of which was known to only one player, but which was no less rearl within the shared imagined space because of that limitation.

Otherwise, the answer would have to have been, "there was nothing behind the door because you never opened it." Since that answer would have been totally dissatisfying and viewed as a cheat, it must be that we all knew there was something behind the door, and that the referee knew what it was, and therefore that's what it was.

There are things in the shared imagined space that are not shared in detail that are not less part of that space because of it.

At least, that's how I see it.

--M. J. Young