So, I wrote an essay about RPG theory:

http://strackenz.spod-central.org/~lpsmith/rpg/essays/ControlAndRestrictions.html

It has two basic premises:  one, that a roleplaying system delegates control over different aspects of the created story to the players (and GM, if there is one), and two, that it can be useful to break down 'story' into four axes:  Character, Plot, Setting, and Tone.  Along the way, I claim that a common resolution to "The Impossible Thing" is simply a matter of control:  the GM is in control of the Plot axis, and the players are in control of the Character axis.  It's (hopefully) a deeper analysis of Illusionism/Participationism.

At some point, I'd like to take a bunch of systems and analyze them specifically in these terms, but these are my thoughts for the nonce.  I started thinking about things in these terms after reading M.J. Young's <A HREF="http://ptgptb.org/0027/theory101-02.html">"The Impossible Thing" essay.  Suggestions/criticisms welcome, of course.

Recently Ron said something along these lines of "The idea that rules are to stop arguments like 'I shot you' 'no you didn't' is just stupid". Anyway, that's what I read of it.

It struck me as a good way of debunking what system can and will do for you. The rules aren't there to stop arguments directly. They are there to avoid unwanted arguments, by creating a series of agreements/rules the players have agreed to, and then can use to arrive at further agreements (like agreeing if someone is shot).*

So what would that make of the word 'control'? Like with the GM controlling the plot. I think it means that really, there are agreements/rules about plot management. And they are used by players and GM to arrive at further agreements with each other.

Hope I'm not too far off base in adding this.

* There are of course, arguments that you do want. You just try to eliminate all the ones you don't. The remaining, carefully chosen ones lead to excellent gameplay.

I'm afraid I'm not convinced, not least becuase "the story" means too many things.  So to discuss who is in control of "the story" is nearly meaningless.  What matters is who is in control of the shared imaginary space, and thats a rather different issue.  Now we re-enter story, and see that while the GM may control plot, the players have so much impact on the SIS that the nominal plot control is not achieveable without denying players the capacity to impact the SIS.  And that, ultimately, is why the impossible thing is impossible - in order to get rising action and climax, the players have to psychically realise where they are in "the story" without the GM telling them, and behave accordingly.  It just doesn't happen.

Callan wrote: So what would that make of the word 'control'?  Like with the GM controlling the plot. I think it means that really, there are agreements/rules about plot management. And they are used by players and GM to arrive at further agreements with each other.

contracycle wrote:
Now we re-enter story, and see that while the GM may control plot, the players have so much impact on the SIS that the nominal plot control is not achieveable without denying players the capacity to impact the SIS.

Hey lpsmith.

Can I recommend a thread to you? It's this one: Why would anybody want to GM?, started by Kat Miller. Oh and here's a follow-up to it: History of theGM? started by komradebob.

What the GM does varies widely, when there even is one!

-Vincent

lpsmith wrote: When I was the GM for my gaming group, I was thinking about plot all the time.  The pace would slow down, so I'd throw in an encounter to speed things up a bit.  The players would be confused, so I'd hold off on encounters while they pieced things together.  I'd try to come up with intriguing locales for them to visit, interesting people to talk to, and exciting challenges to overcome.

After rereading your essay, it seems your definition of plot is actually more about pacing, while your comments here seem to concern the elements of the story outside of traditional players' control (NPCs, setting elements, challenges, etc).  You also seem to imply in your essay that the GM is responsible for making the events of the game "make sense" in a narrative sense, taking in the input of player character actions and weaving them together into something coherent.  This is somewhat similar to the emergent properties I mentioned above.

I get what you're going at, but I think your four 'axes' have more to do with roleplaying as it has been than what roleplaying is or could be.  As you allow in your essay, they are rather arbitrary, and are not exclusive from eachother, leading to bleed-over.  The borderland between Character and Plot is especially problematic, and is where the debate about railroading, illusionism, and participationism takes place.  I don't know if you can make any solid conclusions here until you firm up your definitions of (and the distinctions between) the axes.

lpsmith wrote:
I used the word 'control', but perhaps it would be more clear if I talked about 'responsibility'?  As a player, I'm responsible for stuff my character does.  As a GM, I'm responsible for 'plot stuff'.  Sure, they can influence each other, and even overlap.  But, to me, I think differently when I'm in the different roles.

Hi, Vincent!  I read those threads, and were interesting.  Sadly, I was not able to figure out their relevance, which probably means I'm not communicating something.  Can you say what it is you meant point out?

Hmm, clearer definitions.  Maybe an example will help?  Let's take the plot of Cinderella:

Setup:  Cinderella lives with her stepmother and stepsisters.  They make her work like a maid and do little work themselves.
Conflict:  There's a ball, and they don't let Cinderella go.
Rising action:  Cinderella tries to get to the ball, and is variously thwarted and helped along the way.
Climax:  The prince find out who she really is
Denoument:  They get married; the stepmothers/sisters get their just deserts.

In contrast, here's the character of Cinderella:

Who she is:  human, female, beautiful
What she can do:  work really hard, dream, dance
What she does:  Makes a dress in her spare time, dances with the prince, leaves the ball at midnight.

There are a wide variety of Cinderella characters who would fit the plot above, while leaving their own particular mark on the story; the one I listed is perhaps the most common, though there are others that emerge from different re-tellings of the story.  I might be a GM with that plot in mind, and a player might come up with a Cinderella who's a cleaning robot, and we could still work out a 'story' together with my original 'plot' at least vaguely intact (and changed in ways that I decided, as opposed to ways Cinderella's character decided).  This is, it seems to me, a reasonable way to describe the 'Participationism' solution to 'The Impossible Thing'.

I'm not terribly familiar with what 'situation' and 'pacing' might mean locally, but I imagine that 'situation' would be 'setup and initial conflict' while 'pacing' would be a large part of the 'rising action' bit.  In my head, if you're in control of/resonsible for 'the plot', you're in charge of taking the action somewhere.  If you're in control of/responsible for a character, you're in charge of having there be some action (among other things).

'Control' probably needs work as far as a good definition.  Perhaps it could be defined in the negative:  if you're in sole control of some aspect of the story, and you don't do something with that aspect of the story, nothing happens there.  If you're in sole control of a character, and don't say what that character does, that character doesn't do anything.  If you're in sole control of the conflict, and you don't introduce a conflict, there is no conflict.

Tim, is there something specific you see in the difference between 'control' and 'responsibility'?  There's a concept in my head that usefully can be associated with both terms; I'm more than willing to change vocabulary if it maps to that concept better.

I'm certainly not trying to say that Participationism is the only way to go.  I was trying to organize my thinking along certain lines, while using participationism to illustrate my points, since that's what our group mostly does (as I understand the term, at least).

My motivation for writing this in the first place was simply to say, "There's a lot more you can do when creating a story than control the plot."  The corollary is, "There's a lot more you can experiment with in rpg design than re-distribute plot control."

Like, I dunno, imagine a rpg where all the characters were pre-defined.  Maybe the plot was pre-defined, too, or at least highly restricted like "My Life With Master".  And when you played it, no one person controls the protagonists, but eveyone gets their own piece of the Setting to do with whatever they want.

Or have an rpg based on the 'many GMs, one character' scenario, where one person controls a single protagonist, and everyone else comes up with the plot and setting for them.

-Lucian

lpsmith wrote:
When I'm a player in my gaming group, I don't think about plot at all.  The GM's in charge of that.  Instead, I'm thinking about funny things my character would say in the situation at hand.

contracycle wrote: The GM, thinking about plot, wants to impress upon the players the Eviltude of the villain by having them perform some despicable act in view of the characters. This serves to escalate the tension of the piece and frame the reasons for the climax. You, as a player, are thinking of witty remarks, even IC, and you come up with one and everyone corpses.

lpsmith wrote: Hmm, clearer definitions.  Maybe an example will help?  Let's take the plot of Cinderella...

OK, keep in mind that dividing things up and defining them is supposed to be useful, not prescriptive, but here goes:

Plot:  Setup, conflict, rising action, climax, denoument
  Setup:  The facts that pertain to the situation before the story begins
  Conflict:  The events of the crisis that set the plot in motion
  Rising action:  A series of events that move the action closer to or farther away from the climax (aka victories and setbacks)
  Climax:  Events that resolve the majority of the remaining conflicts.
  Denoument:  Events that follow from the climax, resulting in a new set of facts that pertain to the situation now that the story is done.

Character:  Who you are, what you can do, your attitude, and your actions.

Setting:  Truths about the universe where the story takes place.  There's a continuum between this and the 'setup' of the plot, but it's probably not worth hashing out exactly where that boundary is.  If different people/entities are in control of 'setting' and 'setup', than the boundaries of their control are the best line to draw.  If the same person/entity is in control of both, there's no useful distinction at all.  In other words 'stuff in the book' vs. 'stuff the GM made up' is a helpful line

Tone:  Things that evoke feelings and emotions in the story's viewers and/or participants.  Exactly the same events, when portrayed with different styles, can evoke different tones.  Various OOC things can affect tone, too, like distractions or music.  Tone is about *how* the game is played, not what.  Its parallel in literature is 'writing'.

Different things that people do can have repercussions on different axes, either directly (if they at least partially 'control' that axis) or indirectly (if the person who is in control of an axis chooses to respond).  The example of a joke made by a character in the presence of a villain affects Character (the PC becomes the type of person who would make a joke in the presence of a villain) and Tone (because it makes people laugh/groan/growl).  It does not affect Plot, because there was no movement towards or away from the climax--unless someone in control of Plot chooses to make this happen.

Again, I'm not trying to say, "This is what 'plot' means."  I'm trying to say, "This is what I mean in my essay when I use the word 'plot'."

lpsmith wrote: Again, I'm not trying to say, "This is what 'plot' means."  I'm trying to say, "This is what I mean in my essay when I use the word 'plot'."

Joshua wrote: Does your definition of plot have a predefined climax, or is the nature and characteristics of the climax undetermined until it happens?

Welcome to The Forge, Lucian. I'm pleased my article was helpful.

I'm jumping in while only half finished reading this, so I won't forget what I'm thinking (I do that sometimes, particularly reading long threads); so forgive me if I duplicate someone.

I'm looking at your exposition of plot and character for Cinderella, and it seems to me that your view of role playing is always either participationist or trailblazing; you're so locked into this, that you fail to see how very little control over "character" you're really allowing the character player when you give control of "plot" to the referee player.

lpsmith wrote: Let's take the plot of Cinderella:

Setup:  Cinderella lives with her stepmother and stepsisters.  They make her work like a maid and do little work themselves.
Conflict:  There's a ball, and they don't let Cinderella go.
Rising action:  Cinderella tries to get to the ball, and is variously thwarted and helped along the way.
Climax:  The prince find out who she really is
Denoument:  They get married; the stepmothers/sisters get their just deserts.

In contrast, here's the character of Cinderella:

Who she is:  human, female, beautiful
What she can do:  work really hard, dream, dance
What she does:  Makes a dress in her spare time, dances with the prince, leaves the ball at midnight.

First off, let me say this has been very helpful in clarifying my thoughts.  Then let me disagree with you again ;-)

I'm definitely *not* saying that roleplaying is always either participationist or trailblazing.  That would be kind of a dumb thing to say, since clear examples to the contrary abound.  What I'm trying to say is that participationist and trailblazing play *can* happen when the GM is solely in control of what-I'm-calling-plot.  Does it help if I say that I believe 'bass playing' can *also* happen when the GM is solely in control of the plot?  And that if both players and GM are given control of the plot, you can have 'bass playing' but you can't have participationist or trailblazing play?

M. wrote: That is always what determines plot. If the referee controls plot, he is de facto controling the choices made by the characters, whether doing so directly through illusionist techniques (e.g., it doesn't matter which way the character goes, the Army of Eight will catch him) or through social contract (e.g., the point of this game is for us to be captured by the Army of Eight to start, so let's go get captured so the story can begin).

M. wrote: So you think you're giving control of character to the character players, but you're reserving the most important aspect of that control to the referee, the decisions that determine what is going to happen.

lpsmith wrote: I'm starting to think I shoud re-name my 'Character' axis 'Characterization'.  Intent is characterization.  Outcome is plot.  Good intentions are character, hell is plot.

Joshua wrote:

lpsmith wrote: I'm starting to think I shoud re-name my 'Character' axis 'Characterization'.  Intent is characterization.  Outcome is plot.  Good intentions are character, hell is plot.

I'd go a step further and say that that axis that you want to give to players is 'Intent' and relabel the axis normally controlled by the GM as 'Outcome'.  At which point, you're in IIEE territory.  I think you're getting closer to what you're trying for, but personally, I think you're kind of painting yourself into a corner, describing how gaming could work, under a single, given (if common) social contract.  I'm not sure you're going to be able to draw any useful conclusions from this.

Lastly, I'd challenge -- rather stridently, in fact -- your assertation that Intent is Characterization.  Intent is a pretty pale thing next to Characterization.  Character involves a thousand things outside of the individual's intentions -- accidentally killing a friend, for instance, has huge impact on characterization.  Trying and failing to stand up for one's principles (failed Will check) says more about who the character really is than whatever it was he "intended" to do but didn't have the internal resources to actually be who he wanted to be.  Character is entirely about what you do.  Good intentions are fluff.

Marco wrote: I don't think it's any more proper to say that one is more about who the character "is" in a general sense since both are imaginary constructs.

Joshua wrote:
You can, however, give absolute control of intent to one person and absolute control of outcomes to another.  No conflict arises there.

Control of outcomes does imply control of context, true, but this is at best an indirect control -- potentially powerful, sure, but by no means 'absolute'.  Players can always continue to beat their heads against the wall, after all.

Hmm, we're veering into philosophy here.  But anyway.

My little "Intent is Characterization" aphorism seems to be causing some confusion from what I meant--'intent' probably isn't the right word.  I didn't mean 'stuff you think about doing', I meant, 'stuff you try to do'.

Which changes the question to "Is a character any less of a hero if he stands up for the innocent and fails, or must he succeed?"  And you will actually get different answers to that question depending on who you ask, but *my* answer (and, I suspect, the answer of others who 'don't care about' plot) is 'No'.  And that gets at the difference between what I meant by character and what I meant by plot.  And I continue to assert that they are separable.

However, I'm clearly not communicating something, because while I see what I've written as a perfectly extensible way to dissect a wide variety of roleplaying models (participationism, trailblazing, actual module play, bass playing, battlegrounding, timetabling, relationship mapping, etc. etc.) you all keep thinking I'm only talking about participationism.  Why is this?  What did I say?  Is 'control' overloaded?

To clarify:  I'm trying to talk about *systems*, not Social Contracts.  Any social contract must work with what it is given by the system.  If a system gives control of 'plot' (/outcomes?) to the GM, the GM can then bequeath control to the players through the social contract.  But you cannot keep for yourself something you do not have, and if the system gives control to the players, the GM no longer has the power to run a Participationist game--if that's what everyone wants to play, the players would have to give control *back to the GM*.

Maybe this is enlightening:

Darren wrote: Going further, I'd argue that if you give control of outcomes to one player, then - over time - that means no other player can have absolute control of intents.
Players learn that X will always fail, so they stop intending to do X.

lpsmith wrote:
Which changes the question to "Is a character any less of a hero if he stands up for the innocent and fails, or must he succeed?"  And you will actually get different answers to that question depending on who you ask, but *my* answer (and, I suspect, the answer of others who 'don't care about' plot) is 'No'.  And that gets at the difference between what I meant by character and what I meant by plot.  And I continue to assert that they are separable.

lpsmith wrote: My little "Intent is Characterization" aphorism seems to be causing some confusion from what I meant--'intent' probably isn't the right word.  I didn't mean 'stuff you think about doing', I meant, 'stuff you try to do'.

I'm clearly not communicating something, because while I see what I've written as a perfectly extensible way to dissect a wide variety of roleplaying models ... you all keep thinking I'm only talking about participationism.  Why is this?  What did I say?  Is 'control' overloaded?
...
To clarify:  I'm trying to talk about *systems*, not Social Contracts.  Any social contract must work with what it is given by the system.  If a system gives control of 'plot' (/outcomes?) to the GM, the GM can then bequeath control to the players through the social contract.

Why do you think that my saying 'the GM has control' means 'the players will always fail'?  What's up with that?

lpsmith wrote:
Maybe this is enlightening:

Darren wrote: Going further, I'd argue that if you give control of outcomes to one player, then - over time - that means no other player can have absolute control of intents.
Players learn that X will always fail, so they stop intending to do X.

Why do you think that my saying 'the GM has control' means 'the players will always fail'?  What's up with that?  A perfectly valid mode for a GM to follow is to make the players always *succeed*.  I'm only saying that it's the GM's choice which mode to follow.

And this is also a sort of red herring.  Success or failure, does the action result in a change in the situation that is closer to or further away from the ultimate climax?  (Keep in mind that the climax may itself be shifting or not even exist yet.)  That's even more up to the GM than success or failure of particular actions are (often because success/failure of 'small' actions are determined by die rolls).  This is the foundation of why participationism and trailblazing work at all, but (I contend) is *also* at the foundation of certain flavors of 'bass playing'.  The GM is making different types of decisions, that result in different play experiences.  The players don't have to do anything different at all.

Marco wrote: And while there's a great deal of credit given to the idea that the game system "resolves" or "reconciles" player's ideas about what their character's characterization is, I don't think this is as true as the theory would like it to be. If my character is a doctor with a decent skill roll but the three or four times he tries to save someone the dice come up really unlucky, some people will say he's an incompetent doctor despite what my internal characterization is and (correctly, IMO) continues to be.

I might very much differ from you about who is a hero and where heroism resides in a given set of character interactions...

Blankshield wrote:
I think Darren shortcut past an important step (or I'm reading his message wrong).  

Blankshield wrote: If the GM is the one who decides success or failure, over time a pattern will arise as to what the GM 'likes' and allows to succeed, and what the GM 'dislikes' and causes to fail.  The players will notice this trend, and stop doing things the GM doesn't like, because they know it's a dead end.

Joshua wrote:

Blankshield wrote: If the GM is the one who decides success or failure, over time a pattern will arise as to what the GM 'likes' and allows to succeed, and what the GM 'dislikes' and causes to fail.  The players will notice this trend, and stop doing things the GM doesn't like, because they know it's a dead end.

...assuming the players are only interested in character success, yes.

Man, you people and your terminology!  For one thing, it's hard to keep up, and for another, you've used up half the useful words for these things for specialized concepts.  Whew.  Also, can I request that the non-functional links in the glossary be made functional?  I had to search for the named threads manually (after finally realizing they were named threads) and even then didn't find them except indirectly.

This has been a great discussion, though, and has really served to clarify my thoughts.  Let me start by answering the question, "how do I see my axes interacting with IIEE?"

As I understand it, IIEE is a way of establishing 'what happened in this short bit of the scene'.  So, what you all normally think of as 'Effect' is things like "the blow does 10 points of damage and the guy dies" instead of things like, "Six months later, his brother shows up, intent on revenge." (Correct me if I'm wrong here)

So as far as I can tell, all the roleplaying systems I've actually played (though fewer of the ones I've read about here) have the same model of control over each element of IIEE.  (That would be D&D, 7th Sea, Nobilis, and FUDGE).  Namely, the player has complete control of Intent, has a few system-based restrictions for Initiation, probably gets to narrate what happens in Execution, and should have a good idea of the range of possibilities inherent in the (short-term) Effects, and might even get to narrate some of those (I do 10 points of damage; I make it across the ledge; I successfully throw the moon into the sun, etc.). 

All of these affect my 'Character' axis, the earlier ones (Intent and Initiation) perhaps a bit more than the latter.  But more importantly, as a player, I either completely control or can reasonably predict the content of all four.  The GM is there merely as an arbiter for System.

But what happens *next*?  What are the effects of the effects?  You guys like coming up with cute names for things; I'll add my voice to the noise:  the Butterfly Effects.  Butterfly Effects are stuff like "The guy's brother shows up wanting revenge", "Your actions build a tideswell for the reestablishment of a constitutional democracy in the United States", "The prince falls in love with you", or even "Nothing else happens." 

Butterfly Effects are not very predictable by the players, and (in those four systems) are completely under the control of the GM.  You can say, "I hit the guy", but you can't have the exchange, "I hit the guy so that I can kill him and six months later his brother comes looking for me."  "OK, roll it."  If you were to say that, the GM might take it under advisement, but it's not the sort of thing that happens very often in those games.

Are there systems where Butterfly Effects *are* under control of the players?  GM-less systems; sure.  Any systems with a GM?

So, what is Plot made of?  As I see it (and I'm thinking on my feet here), it's a combination of Butterfly Effects and External Actions (stuff that happens that had nothing to do with anything the PCs did).  I'm finally setting on a definition of 'rising action' to be 'changes in the game state to states either closer to a final resolution (victories) or to states further away from a final resolution (setbacks)'.  Changes in the game state to states equidistant from the desired final resolution are not changes that have affected the plot.  So I'm contending that *only* Butterfly Effects and External Actions can change the game state with respect to plot resolution.

And there's your Impossible Thing.  The players control (or at least reasonably predict) IIEE.  That's character.  The GM controls Butterfly Effects and External Actions.  That's plot.

(I have the niggling suspicion that Revealed Truths factor in here somewhere, but I'm not sure where.  It wouldn't change my analysis of the above four systems, since the GM controls the Revealed Truths, too, but it would affect games like 'The Pool' with its 'monologue of victory'.  Have to think about that some more.)

The next question, then:  what kind of Butterfly Effects are there?
  - Ones that do not affect the plot (no-ops)
  - Ones that affect the plot in a manner predetermined by the GM. (brick paths)
  - Ones that affect the plot in a manner that the GM thinks up on the spot, but nevertheless move towards or away from a predetermined climax. (roller coasters)
  - Ones that affect the plot in a manner that the GM thinks up on the spot, and additionally affect the nature of the eventual climax. (brave new world)

And, you know, you can categorize External Actions exactly the same way, with the additional wrinkle that all of them can be either predetermined or improvised.

Now we can talk about what the GM is doing when following different styles.  Let's start with MJ Young's Participationism, Trailblazing, and Bass Playing:

Participationism:  a lot of brick paths of various stripes, with no-ops thrown in when the GM's creativity runs dry, and roller coasters when the GM's creativity is firing on all cylinders.  Very few if any brave new world's.  A fairly even mix of Butterfly Effects and External Actions; most External Actions are predetermined.

Trailblazing:  Lots of Butterfly Effect no-ops, punctuated by Butterfly Effect and External Action brick paths.  Perhaps a roller coaster or two, if the players get creative and force the GM 'off-book'.

Bass Playing:  Almost all Butterfly Effect brave new worlds, with perhaps a few improvised External Action roller coasters now and again.

Other styles pop out at me as well:

Bullying (aka the Frustrated Novelist):  All Butterfly Effects are no-ops; all External Actions are brick paths.

No Myth:  No brick paths of any kind, no predetermined External Actions, very few no-ops.  Plenty of Butterfly Effect and improvised External Action roller coasters, with a few brave new worlds, probably to kick things off.

Uppity Bass Playing:  Still plenty of Butterfly Effect brave new worlds, but a fair amount of improvised External Action brave new worlds as well.  Butterfly Effects gradually shift to roller coasters.

The Tangent Adventure:  Starts with brick paths, then a Butterfly Effect brave new world gets thrown into the mix, and it's roller coasters from then on.

Digressions:  Any of the above, but with lots of no-ops.  Not because (like Trailblazing) the GM is waiting for the players to find the right thing to do, but because they get distracted from the plot and do nothing plot-wise with the result.  Sessions that devolve into nothing but jokes can go here.

OK, that's entirely too much text.  And geez, look at the time.  I always think better in discussions than on my own, so thanks again for all the insightful comments.

Joshua wrote:
My point isn't about character interactions; it's about the distinction between player intent and character initiation.  Someone who tries and fails to do something heroic may very well be heroic; a character who doesn't try at all isn't heroic under any circumstances.  See my IIEE comment in my last post.

Marco wrote: Example: A player tries (perhaps constantly) to have his character betray the party. Each time the GM prevents him saying it'll ruin the game in a pure meta-game call. Is the character considered treacherous? I'd say "yes." If you think I'm 100% incorrect because of some IIEE issue to do so, you're simply wrong--I know, for example, how that character'll play when we switch GMs to the guy who's okay with intra-party conflict.

Okay, LP.  Couple points:

You've got IIEE more or less right, as I understand it, although it's not so much a specific process as steps that are common to all (?) resolution processes.  Every game has all four steps; the system just does its 'thing' at one or another step, depending.

A lot of what you're saying is based on task resolution as opposed to conflict resolution; I think you'll find a lot more player control of external actions and butterfly effects in conflict resolution games, especially those where players narrate their own successes and failures.  There are indeed games that allow the players control of the far-reaching Effects, including what you term Butterfly Effects.  Universalis does this, I think Trollbabe does, and a couple more that aren't coming to mind yet (FLFS will).  Additionally, consider spending XP in 7th Sea -- you can buy the Enemy background (I think it's Enemy, or Nemesis) with XP, stipulating that it's the brother of the guy you killed.  Also, remember that "System" is not limited to "published rules" and so any playgroup where the players can ask for long-range effects gives at least some control of Butterfly Effects to the players.  It is by no means cut and dried.

In any case, you still have "Character" (Player Intent, and maybe Character Initiation) and "Plot" (Outcomes, Butterfly Effects, and External Actions) as separate domains.  Now, I won't argue that this is how a lot of games are played -- sure.  Take a look at what this means, though.  Character has no causal effect on Plot.  No matter what the players want their characters to do, it has no direct effect on the development of the game: all the results are the product of GM fiat.  Maybe the GM "plays nice" and incorporates player actions into the developing story; maybe he doesn't.  And you still haven't resolved the extent to which plot development impacts characterization.  The players have no guarantees outside of "Play nice or I walk" and there is no mechanical foundation from which to even judge whether the GM is playing nice or not.  Lastly, this all puts a tremendous burden on the GM, who is essentially responsible for the progress of the entire game.  Sure, we can apportion these parts of the game in such a way, but now you have to answer the hard question: why do we want to?

Joshua wrote:

Marco wrote: Example: A player tries (perhaps constantly) to have his character betray the party. Each time the GM prevents him saying it'll ruin the game in a pure meta-game call. Is the character considered treacherous? I'd say "yes." If you think I'm 100% incorrect because of some IIEE issue to do so, you're simply wrong--I know, for example, how that character'll play when we switch GMs to the guy who's okay with intra-party conflict.

I guess I'm simply wrong, Marco.

Joshua wrote: There are indeed games that allow the players control of the far-reaching Effects, including what you term Butterfly Effects.  Universalis does this, I think Trollbabe does, and a couple more that aren't coming to mind yet (FLFS will).  Additionally, consider spending XP in 7th Sea -- you can buy the Enemy background (I think it's Enemy, or Nemesis) with XP, stipulating that it's the brother of the guy you killed.

Joshua wrote: Also, remember that "System" is not limited to "published rules"

Joshua wrote:
In any case, you still have "Character" (Player Intent, and maybe Character Initiation) and "Plot" (Outcomes, Butterfly Effects, and External Actions) as separate domains. 

Joshua wrote: Sure, we can apportion these parts of the game in such a way, but now you have to answer the hard question: why do we want to?

Joshua wrote: And you still haven't resolved the extent to which plot development impacts characterization.

lpsmith wrote: Like, if the GM kills my brother, I could choose to make that a character no-op (enh, I never really knew him that well anyway), do what the GM expected ('you bastards!  You'll pay for this!'), or do something unexpected, (commit suicide; try to get him resurrected; accept his death as inevitable; show kindness to those that killed him).  All those responses are back in my court.  They're under my control once again, and I can use them to continue to build my character.

Josh?  Nobody is here to take your new-found toys away.  You are welcome to keep them.

It seems to me that I've already answered all your increasingly-hostile questions, and that half the things you claim I said I didn't say.  Which means it's time to move this out of a public forum--if you still have questions, feel free to e-mail me (lpsmith@rice.edu).

One more attempt at summarization:  My first point:  You can break down the 'stuff' of an RPG session as answers to four questions:

-Where did the story take place?  (Setting)
-Who were the characters?  (Character)
-What happened to them?  (Plot)
-What was it like?  (Tone)

Yes, there can be bleed-over, and answers to one question might have to refer to answers to the other questions.  But you can do this for a RPG story just like you can a literary story.  Surely we've all read books where we liked the characters and were bored by the plot?  Where we liked the setting, but thought the writing sucked?

My second point:  calling something 'the impossible thing' when it can be resolved 27 different ways doesn't make it actually impossible.  It makes it unclear.

In traditional roleplaying systems(/rule sets), this is resolved by giving the players about as much control over their characters as they have over themselves in real life.  This is a very natural way to think about things.  It gives many players enough control to think of the characters as 'theirs'.  There are many, many, other options.

My third and final point:  When you design an rpg, you do yourself a favor if you consciously assign control of various aspects of the story to different players of the drama (yourself, the GM (if needed), and the players).  Do you want to keep control of the setting?  Set your borders carefully.  Do you want to more strongly influence tone?  Have rules that reinforce the tone you want to set.  Do you want your system to explore only certain types of plots?  Have rules that restrict them.  Who do you want to control the plot?  Tell your players.

Restrictions foster creativity.  If your players wanted no restrictions at all, they would do improv theatre (and some do).  But even improv theatre has restrictions--for some reason, it's simply easier to think of 'a noun that starts with A' than it is to think of 'a noun'.

(For the record, I read up on Actor Stance, and can't see how it relates to any of the above points--it's talking about Stance, not control.)

Lucien has given me much to consider, and much to which I need to reply. This is in the order I find it in the thread, so it's going to be a bit disjointed.

Lucien wrote: I'm definitely *not* saying that roleplaying is always either participationist or trailblazing.  That would be kind of a dumb thing to say, since clear examples to the contrary abound.  What I'm trying to say is that participationist and trailblazing play *can* happen when the GM is solely in control of what-I'm-calling-plot.  Does it help if I say that I believe 'bass playing' can *also* happen when the GM is solely in control of the plot?  And that if both players and GM are given control of the plot, you can have 'bass playing' but you can't have participationist or trailblazing play?

Lucien wrote: To clarify:  I'm trying to talk about *systems*, not Social Contracts.  Any social contract must work with what it is given by the system.

M. wrote:
Lucien has given me much to consider, and much to which I need to reply. This is in the order I find it in the thread, so it's going to be a bit disjointed.

Lucien wrote: I'm definitely *not* saying that roleplaying is always either participationist or trailblazing.  That would be kind of a dumb thing to say, since clear examples to the contrary abound.  What I'm trying to say is that participationist and trailblazing play *can* happen when the GM is solely in control of what-I'm-calling-plot.  Does it help if I say that I believe 'bass playing' can *also* happen when the GM is solely in control of the plot?  And that if both players and GM are given control of the plot, you can have 'bass playing' but you can't have participationist or trailblazing play?

That only helps in a very backhanded sort of way.

In participationism, plot control is indeed with the referee completely.

In bass playing, plot control cannot at all be with the referee, as his responsibility is to respond to what the players cause to happen.  For example, in a bass-playing sort of game, the player could say, "I'm going to search this room for evidence that the villain is tied in with the mayor." He then uses whatever resolution mechanic is required (e.g., rolls dice), and if he is successful, then the villain is tied in with the mayor, whatever the referee thought originally. That's an extreme example, but the point is that if I'm running the game as a bass-player referee, it is up to my players to decide where the story goes, and up to me to support their decisions. That makes it impossible for me to control the plot at all, beyond that I can set it up and handle the pacing.

OK, much is cleared up by my realizing that we all meant two different things by 'system'.  In any of my posts, you can safely strike the word 'system' and replace it with 'game design'.  I'll try to be consistent in the future.  I'm also not sure if there's any difference between what I called 'control' and what you called in your essay 'credibility', so I'll try using your term to see if that helps me make more sense.  Slowly, I will assimilate the Forge verbiage, at which point I will be able to talk to nobody else.

[I'll note, though, that in Marco's last post he used 'the system MLWM' to mean 'the MLWM game design'.  But that's fodder for a different discussion ;-]

So, let me re-state one of my hypotheses:  If the game design gives sole control('credibility') of the 'plot' to the GM, some styles of play available to the GM include Participationism, Trailblazing, and Bass Playing.  If the game design gives credibility of the plot to both the players and the GM, Participationism and Trailblazing are no longer options for play, leaving Bass Playing as the only (listed) example left.

(This assumes that players are playing 'by the rules', of course.  The case where they don't may be interesting from the perspective of a player, but isn't that interesting from the perspective of a game designer, unless drift is intentional.)

I feel a bit exposed talking about My Life With Master, since I haven't actually played it myself, but I've read enough to still posit that the 'plot' of a MLWM game is mostly under control of the game design, and those bits given to the players to control have heavy restrictions on them.

My five bits of plot, again, are setup, initial conflict, rising action, climax, and denoument.  Someone can fill in some details here, but here's how I understand that MLWM controls and distributes credibility to each:

Setup:  There is a 'master', who controls characters played by the players.  The details aren't set, but mostly means that there's little game design controlling 'setting' (which the players and GM control, though I don't know who gets to say what, or if it's simply communal).

Initial Conflict:  This I'm not sure on.  Where do MLWM games begin?  Are there game rules that control it?

Rising action/Climax:  There are two possible climaxes the game can progress to, set up to be opposed to one another--one where the servant breaks control from the master, and one where they finally give in (am I right?).  This is nicely set up--any step that takes you closer to one climax takes you further from the other, and visa versa.  The credibility involved ("I am now more likely to break control" "I am more of a slave") is precisely parcelled out by the game design.  Any external-to-the-plot actions may be interesting, but don't move the characters any closer to or further away from either climax, and therefore don't fit under what-I'm-calling-plot.

Denoument:  In other RPGs, the denoument can contain some of the setup for the next story.  Not so here--once you're done, you're done.  You could take your characters and play a MLWM sequel in a different system, but you're no longer playing MLWM.  I believe there are no rules constraining this part of the plot in the game design; the GM and players probably jointly control it (again, tell me if I'm wrong here).

So, given the above, I'd say that all games of MLWM are participationist, with the game design itself in the role usually reserved for the GM in such games.  Everything the players (and GM!) control are 'color'; they're the little girl on her grandad's knee telling him that the princess' name is the same as hers.

But of course, there's tons left of the story left to control--there's Setting, Character, and Tone.  And there's the discovery of how Character impacts the Plot--it may be basically set up in advance, but there's still a lot of 'roller coaster butterfly effects' to experience  (unanticipated actions causing unanticipated repercussions that nevertheless advance the plot towards a predetermined climax).  And, hey, while a choice between two climaxes isn't much of a choice, it's still *a* choice.

OK, a few specific responses:

M. wrote:
In bass playing, plot control cannot at all be with the referee, as his responsibility is to respond to what the players cause to happen.  For example, in a bass-playing sort of game, the player could say, "I'm going to search this room for evidence that the villain is tied in with the mayor." He then uses whatever resolution mechanic is required (e.g., rolls dice), and if he is successful, then the villain is tied in with the mayor, whatever the referee thought originally.

M. wrote:
This approach is completely inimical to baseplaying and to trailblazing, because this is using illusionist techniques to vacate a player's choices of their intended effect on the shared imagined space.  This is the referee saying, "No, you're going to the ball, darn it, because that's the story I have planned," while the player is, through this action, screaming, "I don't want to go to your darn ball, and you can't make me." Because the participationist/illusionist referee has so much credibility, he wins--what the player wants does not count, does not matter, he's only there to hear the story and add color.

M. wrote:
What you're doing here is no different from identifying with Luke Skywalker in Star Wars:  A New Hope. "Did you see what I did, man? When I blew up that death star?" You did nothing but identify with a character in a story. You drew a picture of that character on some imaginary canvas, saying, "this is what the hero looks like", but that was completely irrelevant to the story, to which you contributed nothing of substance.

M. wrote:
Your analysis does not account for games like Legends of Alyria where the referee is optional and players are simultaneously playing against each other and working together to craft the best story. Who controls the plot? Whoever decides what the characters do, he controls the plot. Who controls what the characters do? Whoever controls what the characters do, he controls the plot.

M. wrote:
[Participationism is] the only form of which I am aware in which the players are only interested in characterization. In Illusionism they are desperately interested in controling the plot, but are unaware that they have been completely eviscerated in this.  In trailblazing, they are earnestly attempting to bring about the plot that the referee has planned for them. In bass playing, they are quite definitely creating the plot themselves. It is only in participationism that players cede total control of "plot" to the referee and satisfy themselves with the color of characterization. In any other form, for the referee to take control of plot is a violation of social contract, and that's where it matters.

lpsmith wrote:
[I'll note, though, that in Marco's last post he used 'the system MLWM' to mean 'the MLWM game design'.  But that's fodder for a different discussion ;-]

So, let me re-state one of my hypotheses:  If the game design gives sole control('credibility') of the 'plot' to the GM, some styles of play available to the GM include Participationism, Trailblazing, and Bass Playing.  If the game design gives credibility of the plot to both the players and the GM, Participationism and Trailblazing are no longer options for play, leaving Bass Playing as the only (listed) example left.

Marco wrote: If, by using the term "credibility," you are talking about the case where the GM theoritically can control everything and chooses not to, while that might be technically correct, I'm not sure that I agree with you.

lpsmith wrote: I could imagine all of the stories happening in, I dunno, d20 Modern or some such.

lpsmith wrote:
Now, you'll have to tell me how systems like Multiverser that distribute 'plot credibility' do this, because the mechanics are somewhat mysterious to me.  In the last 'Postman' example, for instance, who decided that the character's death inspired the nation to return to democracy?  The player or the GM?  How did that work out as far as the game design went, and how much was simply agreed upon between the two of you?  Were there dice rolled?  Because I could imagine all of the stories happening in, I dunno, d20 Modern or some such.

-Lucian

O.K., I wrote a lot, I got a lot back--that's reasonable, even if I am having a rough week. So let me see what I can address here.

lpsmith wrote: So, let me re-state one of my hypotheses:  If the game design gives sole control('credibility') of the 'plot' to the GM, some styles of play available to the GM include Participationism, Trailblazing, and Bass Playing.

While "I don't want to go to the ball!" is a *possible* thought going through the head of the player in question, it is by no means the *only* possible thought.  Maybe the player is having fun watching the GM sweat.  Maybe the player wants to make this re-telling of Cinderella about a suicidal Cinderella.  This 'shared imagination space' is much bigger than you're giving it credit for.

lpsmith wrote: Let's say the GM's idea is to have the PC play the part of Cinderella.  We'll say it's a system like d20 where the GM has control of everything but the physical actions of the PC.  The PC picks up a gun and shoots herself.  The next thing the GM had planned was to have the fairy godmother show up.  He hadn't considered the possibility of the PC trying to commit suicide before that moment.  Here's some possible options that GMs using different styles could use:

- The Railroader:  "*Click*.  The gun wasn't loaded.  *Poof*  Your fairy godmother shows up!  'Having trouble getting to the ball, dearie?  Let's see what I can do to help.'"  [ignore character action, continue with the plan]

- The Trailblazer:  "*Click*.  The gun wasn't loaded.  What do you do now?"  [wait for character action to match up with the plan]

- No Myth:  "*Boom*  Your body slumps to the floor, blood pooling around it.  And... you're watching, standing over it, oddly detached.  You hear a sigh from behind you, and turn to find a see-through figure of a girl about your age in very old-fashioned clothes.  'And the house claims another victim.  We had such hopes for you, you know.  But now you're trapped here with the rest of us.'" [use character action as inspiration to improvise a new plan]

- The Bass Player:  [after an OOC discussion with the player about what they wanted to have happen] "The retort from the gun alerts the night watchman, who, hearing no answer at the door, breaks in to find your dead body in your room.  Horrified, he searches the room and finds your suicide note and your diary.  He begins an investigation into your stepmother and stepsisters that ends in their incarceration, and new laws are passed that ensure the horrors you went through will not happen again.  OK, what do you want to play now?"  [use your credibility to describe the player's plan]

Now, you'll have to tell me how systems like Multiverser that distribute 'plot credibility' do this, because the mechanics are somewhat mysterious to me.  In the last 'Postman' example, for instance, who decided that the character's death inspired the nation to return to democracy?  The player or the GM?  How did that work out as far as the game design went, and how much was simply agreed upon between the two of you?  Were there dice rolled?  Because I could imagine all of the stories happening in, I dunno, d20 Modern or some such.

M. wrote:
O.K., I wrote a lot, I got a lot back--that's reasonable, even if I am having a rough week. So let me see what I can address here.

M. wrote:
I see your point about Star Wars being "different" if someone else played Luke Skywalker, but since it is what George Lucas wanted it to be, I take that as "different in completely inconsequential ways about which very few people would care".  Mark Hamill had little control over what Star Wars was, and if you want to say it's different if we're talking about him identifying with Luke as opposed to you, fine. It's still the case that who Luke is is defined by what he does, and what he does is defined by what George Lucas wants him to do, so Mark Hamill contributed nothing of consequence. He added color to the story Lucas was telling.

M. wrote:
Moving to another post:

lpsmith wrote: - The Railroader:  "*Click*.  The gun wasn't loaded.  *Poof*  Your fairy godmother shows up!  'Having trouble getting to the ball, dearie?  Let's see what I can do to help.'"  [ignore character action, continue with the plan]

This would be either illusionism or participationism.

M. wrote:

wrote: - No Myth:  "*Boom*  Your body slumps to the floor, blood pooling around it.  And... you're watching, standing over it, oddly detached.  You hear a sigh from behind you, and turn to find a see-through figure of a girl about your age in very old-fashioned clothes.  'And the house claims another victim.  We had such hopes for you, you know.  But now you're trapped here with the rest of us.'" [use character action as inspiration to improvise a new plan]

- The Bass Player:  [after an OOC discussion with the player about what they wanted to have happen] "The retort from the gun alerts the night watchman, who, hearing no answer at the door, breaks in to find your dead body in your room.  Horrified, he searches the room and finds your suicide note and your diary.  He begins an investigation into your stepmother and stepsisters that ends in their incarceration, and new laws are passed that ensure the horrors you went through will not happen again.  OK, what do you want to play now?"  [use your credibility to describe the player's plan]

Actually, these are both potential bass player approaches, as I understand them. So is, you died, let's start a new game. What matters is that the player could take the story in any direction he wished to take it, and the referee saw his job as facilitating that.

M. wrote:
Multiverser is tricky in this regard, because it gives the referee a fair amount of leeway in controling the distribution of credibility, but does not allow him to override player choices except in the sense that the dice may indicate failure at an attempted task.

One quick note, when I came up with participationism, I postulated it as a hypothetical. That is, the idea of participationism comes from certain adventure texts, which if played by how they're written, would eliminate almost all of player input, including most of the "acting." Like the adventure At the Mountains of Madness where it says things like, "When the bad guys go running off, the adventurers chase after them, catching up in the next scene."

Or worse, "The PCs stand horrified, unable to respond to what's going on."

In practice, I've yet to find one player who says that they would like to play this way. GMs who at first seem to want to play this way, on examination, turn out to use such texts as guidelines for what might happen, and play pretty much strong illusionism. So participationism may not be categorizable to motive because it may be that nobody plays that way.

Actually the closest thing to Participationism that I can find is reading to somebody. The difference between these two activities is that in participationism (if it exists) the player associates with one character amongst all the protagonists (by default, he can associate with the others as well), and may in certain cases be allowed to deliver lines so long as they match the GM's need for them. That is, as previously indicated, the GM in this style is allowed to simply ignore their narration of dialog or decision, and supplant it with his own in order to get the story to go precisely where it needs to go.

It's also comparable to doing a "reading" of a script in which the dialog has not been decided on, but the director has right to edit the dialog.

Because the defining feature of participationism is that the GM has visible control of plot. That includes "character" to the extent neccessary to make the plot work. In illusionism, the player seems to have control of character, but no so that it affects plot. The impossible thing is not that the player can't add things to the SIS, if the GM controls plot, just that the things they add don't affect plot. Basically both the player and GM can't control plot at the same time (pretty obvious when viewed this way).

Mike

Mike wrote: GMs who at first seem to want to play this way, on examination, turn out to use such texts as guidelines for what might happen, and play pretty much strong illusionism.

That is the only difference. The question is what is it that "the GM is doing"? What the GM is doing is controlling whatever he needs to in order to have the plot turn out as it's supposed to.

Anyhow, what I'm saying is that GM's don't want participationism. That is, even if they write an adventure that seems like it's going to require them to take control of the characters to a great extent, still allow the more illusionist level of control. That is, they'll take At the Mountains of Madness and instead of running it like a script, once they get into play, they realize that's untennable, and come up with ways to cope, strategies that make the play illusionist.

For instance, where the text says, "The chase after..." the GM uses the standard illusionism "You're chasing after them, right?" If the player says no, they then escalate, "They took the only food!"

Now, as Ron points out, the question is how "invisible" all of this is. Is there a "real" illusionism where the players don't know that their actions are being controlled to create an end effect? Or is it in fact that the players do know what's going on, and it's just a matter of everyone pretending like the GM control isn't happening?

Which is to say that these two styles are, possibly, only one actual style that ever occurs (with some nuances, possibly, but nothing to really separate them). Or a spectrum that rarely or never strays to the theoretical endpoints. Given illusionism technique, players always at the very least suspect that the GM is up to something. With participationism-ish play, I can't actually believe that anyone actually does the control explicitly.

It's the difference between "You're chasing after them, right?" vs. "Your characters chase after them." Everyone tacks on the "right?" at the end, thus maintaining the illusion, no matter how badly, that the players have some choice in the matter. In practice, I think this may just be what everyone can agree is bad technique. I don't think that even when it's used, anyone wants to be using it. They'd much rather that the players made the "correct" choice and that this sort of correction didn't have to be used, no?

Mike

Mike wrote:
So participationism may not be categorizable to motive because it may be that nobody plays that way.

I think that's participationism only for a moment. This is not a mode of play, so I won't get all "instance of play" on you. But I think that in noting that it's something that the GM had to apologize for, it makes my point. It's seen here as a neccessary evil at best. Not as a way to run a game long-term. I'm sure that most play of the game is heavy illusionism.

But it makes my point that all of these things are on a spectrum in between.

Mike

Hmm.  If the only difference between Participationism and Illusionism is that the players do/don't know what the GM is doing, why would there be a difference in 'control level' of what the GM controls?  Mike, you say, "even if they write an adventure that seems like it's going to require them to take control of the characters to a great extent, [they] still allow the more illusionist level of control."  Where did control come into play?  Is there an assumption that if the players know what the GM is doing, they will cede control of their characters to the GM?  That seems weird to me.

In Hal's example, there weren't even character control issues.  To put it in terms of 'control and restrictions', the issue seems to me to be the GM ignoring some of the restrictions he normally followed (i.e. 'game rules') in order to create a plot point (probably the 'setup', to use my own terminology.)

The 'Lumpley System' was strained in the process, but didn't break because the GM said, "OK, I know, I know, I'll only do this once, and I didn't write the adventure."  I don't think that Participationism/Illusionism come into play at all (as I understand the terms, at least).

-Lucian

If the GM is operating under the assumption that the players think what's happening is a result of their actions, he knows he can get away with taking more liberties. When called on it, he might make some sort of concession ("don't use that speed potion, you can't catch him.")
If playing in an overtly participationist fashion, he'll know what he does has to meet some higher (but still low) level of player approacl - they've aggreed to particpate in his adventure, but if they think he is taking advantage, they have more freedom to challenge him precisely because things are above board. When they don't know if he taking liberties, even if they strongly suspect, as in illusionism, they'll be slower to challenge. They probably won't be happy, but that small doubt will cause them to hold back a little longer.

Mike Holmes wrote wrote: But I think that in noting that it's something that the GM had to apologize for, it makes my point. It's seen here as a neccessary evil at best. Not as a way to run a game long-term.

Lucian wrote wrote: The 'Lumpley System' was strained in the process, but didn't break because the GM said, "OK, I know, I know, I'll only do this once, and I didn't write the adventure."  I don't think that Participationism/Illusionism come into play at all (as I understand the terms, at least).