I call the power in a roleplaying game Credibility. As in, whose statements about what happens are Credible? If I say that I shoot you, and you say the gun jams, whose word do we take for it?

1. Fundamentally, we evaluate each assertion that each player makes, giving and withholding Credibility on a case-by-case, moment-by-moment basis. The power rests exclusively with the listener, never the speaker - no one can claim Credibility; Credibility is only given or withheld. A roleplaying game is, thus, based on negotiation. Usually it's streamlined and invisible, but negotiation underlies every game-significant statement.

2. I'm not offering a way to play. I'm saying that this is how all of us play, every single time. I'm also not defining roleplaying, cuz lots of things work the same way and aren't roleplaying. (Saying, "Vince, dude, every conversation works like that" is agreeing with me, not disagreeing. Roleplaying is a kind of conversation.)

3. It's practical to divvy Credibility up in advance. One common arrangement is to have one player be the final authority on all matters. Another is to play by preset rules, usually again with one player as the final arbiter. Let me emphasize that these are social arrangements, subject to change at the will of the group, and that even so, every statement about "what happens" must be negotiated. (It just makes the negotiations easy: "I shoot you." "The gun jams [because you gave final authority to me]." "Dang.")

4. All roleplaying game systems apportion Credibility, and that's all they do. There is nothing else for them to do. The crunchiest, sprawlingest, simmest game is a contract between the players about whose word to take for what.

5. It is possible to play a fully cooperative roleplaying game with no formal system, including no final authorities on any matter. You do this by overtly negotiating controversial statements as they come up. (Like the man says, System Matters. Playing this way won't necessarily help you meet your goals for your game.)

6. Compare:

"I shoot you." "The gun jams [because you gave final authority to me]." "Dang."

"I shoot you." "The gun jams." "It does? Look at my character sheet, which has 'Gun Maintenance and Repair: 85%' on it. I think I'd'a noticed any problems. [We agreed to play by preset rules, so I'd like you to retract your statement.]" "Hm, okay, roll for it [and I agree with you to abide by the results of the roll]."

"I shoot you." "The gun jams." "Dude, that sucks, you're robbing me." "Well, okay, I see your point. But I don't want to die. Let's compromise."

"I shoot you, but [as I don't think you want to die] the gun jams! Dang!"

---

This may be a total nothingburger, noncontroversial, but I kind of doubt it. I'm interested to see.

-Vincent

One caution here. I think it's somewhat misleading to interpret the apportioning of credibility as always being between different players:

...whose statements about what happens are Credible?

...whose word do we take for it?

... a contract between the players about whose word to take for what

lumpley wrote: I call the power in a role-playing game Credibility. As in, whose statements about what happens are Credible? If I say that I shoot you, and you say the gun jams, whose word do we take for it?

lumpley wrote: 6. Compare:

• "I shoot you." "The gun jams [because you gave final authority to me]." "Dang."

• "I shoot you." "The gun jams." "It does? Look at my character sheet, which has 'Gun Maintenance and Repair: 85%' on it. I think I'd'a noticed any problems. [We agreed to play by preset rules, so I'd like you to retract your statement.]" "Hm, okay, roll for it [and I agree with you to abide by the results of the roll]."

• "I shoot you." "The gun jams." "Dude, that sucks, you're robbing me." "Well, okay, I see your point. But I don't want to die. Let's compromise."

• "I shoot you, but [as I don't think you want to die] the gun jams! Dang!"

Could I paraphrase you Walt by saying sometimes the system isn't apportioning Credibility between two players...sometimes it is withholding Credibility for itself?

In otherwords:

Player: "I shoot him"

System: "no...you mean you TRY to shoot him, I'll decide whether it happens or not"

In a sense all of the various props we use have "Credibility" attached to them.

For instance the System could apportion the Credibility to the dice as in "the dice will decide whether you hit" with a fortune mechanic. Or it could apportion the Credibility to the character sheet (so to speak) with a Karma mechanic. Or it could apportion the Credibility to the GM with a drama mechanic. Or it could apportion the Credibility to the player (or a different player) with a director stance mechanic.

If we lump all of the "non individual person" stuff...like tables, dice, cards, etc. into "system", than the system itself becomes another "player" at the table in terms of who has the "Credibility".


Although I must say, I like the term Authority better than Credibility. It seems to me we're talking about whose statement we chose to give power to not whose statement we choose to believe.

Valamir wrote: Although I must say, I like the term Authority better than Credibility. It seems to me we're talking about whose statement we chose to give power to not whose statement we choose to believe.

Walt wrote: ...the apportioning of credibility is considered to extend to specific statements rather than just specific players at specific times.

Walt wrote: Apportioning credibility between specific statements or possible statements all originating from the same player's decisions, to determine which become fact, is where most crunchiness applies.

To run with Mike's Authority a bit:

The system isn't the only source of Authority. Genre conventions, story considerations, character integrity are -- anything you can appeal to for support of your assertion.

Seems to me that Narrativism as a game design philosophy is all about bringing system-based Authority and story consideration-based Authority into line with one another. But that's not really here nor there.

Fang,

Yeah. I've thought we were on the same page for a while about this stuff, just hadn't said so.

-Vincent

Valamir wrote: If we lump all of the "non individual person" stuff...like tables, dice, cards, etc. into "system", than the system itself becomes another "player" at the table in terms of who has the "Credibility".

Valamir wrote:

Valamir wrote: Player: "I shoot him"

System: "no...you mean you TRY to shoot him, I'll decide whether it happens or not"

Well, I agree 100% with the concept Vincent proposed, and I definitely hear where your coming from regarding the people thing.

But I would say that it sounds to me like a distinction that is made primarily as part of a philosophical platform rather than one with practical application.

To me your translation of the "shoot him" line is nothing more than the players granting credibility back to the system. Obviously the system has no credibility without the players acquiessance...but then it also has no ability to apportion credibility amongst the players without their acquiessance so that point seems rather moot.

So "I shoot him" "no you have to roll for that" is the players granting the first player credibility only if the first player's action is filtered through the game mechanics. Something to me which is functionally identical to the players apportioning a particular aspect of Credibility back to the System...or more precisely yet, acquiessing to the system (i.e. the rule book) reserving that aspect for itself.

At this point I'll hit a tangent and mention that I work in a bank with Trust accounts for a living. A trust is a document (more or less a contractural arrangement between a grantor and a beneficiary). As trustee for a trust...the trust is our client. The grantor is not the client (they are usually dead) the beneficiary is not the client. The trust itself is its own entity (with its own tax id number) and its own legal existance.

I mention this as a way of shedding light on the idea that considering the game book as another "player" i.e. interested party is a natural thing to me. The distinction between the living people involved and the book of rules is not a distinct one for me...because I treat a book of rules (a trust document) as a person every day.

So from my perspective, it doesn't violate the essential truth that is at the heart of Vincent's discussion that role playing systems are nothing more than methods of apportioning credibility. I am perfectly able to ascribe having some credibility apportioned to what you are obviously viewing as an inanimate object. To me that inanimate object carries just as much wieght as a living breathing person because thats the field I'm in.

Actually it usually carries more weight than a living breathing person which possibly also accounts for my willingness to design rules where the rule book says "THIS is the right way to do it and you shall obey me because I am the rule book".

Anyway...just a little background to put things in perspective.

lumpley wrote: Shadows works the same way, I think: "Here's what I want, here's what my Shadow wants -- dang! My Shadow die won. Well, what I want happens anyway." If the other players agree to it, it's fine, I mean it happens anyway, just as I say. It just means that we aren't actually apportioning credibility by the game rules, we're using some other system.

Valamir,

Interesting perspective on non-human entitities holding power. Thanks for the insight! Yes, inanimate entities in the form of trusts, corporations and game systems do end up holding more power than the human agents. In society this is supported by rule of law (and force of arms); in gaming, by social agreement (and pressure).

Valamir wrote: To me your translation of the "shoot him" line is nothing more than the players granting credibility back to the system.

Good stuff Emily.

Yeah...It sounds to me like what we're talking about is the basic theory of government that power ultimately comes from the people who consent to be governed.

Only in this case its the players consenting to be governed by the game rules.

That consent vests the government / game rules with real power. Through the mechanisms of legistlation / social contract we can alter the parameters of that government, but otherwise we are agreeing to abide by its dictates...including who or what has the Credibility to make a declared action stick.

So we have:

Power of the Players ----> being handed over to the game rules ----> being reallocated by said rules back to the players.

That reallocation may (often) include unequal allocation to the player granted the title of Game Master. Further it usually involves reserving some (often much) of the Credibility for itself in the sense of requireing players to filter their statements through mechanics before receiving the Credibility they seek.

I agree with Vincent.

It seems to me that the system should be placed a level higher in the hierarchy of this discussion. The agreement to abide by a particular system is a prerequisite to play, and a major part of the social contract. IMO, a theoretical discussion of credibility or authority can only take place with this structure firmly in place.

The claim that a system has no inherent credibility looks false to me. Game systems are not static or passive. They don't rely on humans to make them real on a moment-by-moment basis. I like to compare them to executable computer code. The players make the decision to run the program (use the game system) during the initial stages of negotiation. ("Hey, you wanna come over and play D&D? I got a new dungeon!" "Yeah! Sure! Sounds like a blast!") Once the program is started, it runs by itself.

This isn't to say that the execution is always seemless. There can be bugs in the data ("What? Who says this sword weighs 60 pounds?") or errors in the algorithms ("So, I can keep buying this stat up, then back down, and get as may creation points as a want. Hehehehe....). The players can interrupt the process ("No, you don't really die here!") or kill it ("This sucks! Let's go play playstation!").

So, IOW, the decision to use a particular game system is implicitly awarding default Credibility to that system. That the system has Credibility is a given whenever you're talking about instances of play. It was given Authority way back when you first decided that you were going to use it instead of Vampire.

I'm wondering if these concepts should be split.

My thinking is that the game system has authority, but not credibility; meanwhile, it may be that participants have levels of credibility but not authority.

This is what I mean: when we agreed to play This Game(TM), we agreed to abide by the rules of This Game(TM), including all that are in the book and any inherent in the setting or system which are not clearly stated. This gives the rules Authority, in that the rules are the final arbiter of the game.

But when we pick a referee and invest him with the power to run the game, we are in essence establishing him as the most Credible interpreter of what those rules are and mean when applied to play. The rules may instead give Credibility to one of the other players; indeed, all of the players are given some measure of Credibility, as all are able to define at least what actions their characters will attempt. Thus what is happening in the game world is determined by the contributions of whoever has the Credibility to state it; but is based on the Authority of the rules/system/setting/game.

The best example of this to my mind would be the function of the court system as Finder of Law. In essence, the Law exists, in statutes, ordinances, and regulations; but frequently when we end up in court, the question is What does the Law Mean? At trial, the judge is the Finder of Law. When that question is raised, he looks at the law first. (He also looks at precedent, which I'll get to in a moment.) He then says, "This is what I think the Law means, and this is how we will continue." The judge is granted the power to make that decision; at that point, everyone must proceed on the basis that this is what the law means.

If the judge's decision is appealed, the appelate court looks at the law (and precedent), looks at what the trial judge decided, and determines whether or not he was correct; but they don't have the authority to say "This is what the Law Is"; they can only say "This is what the Law Means". If the appeal goes all the way to the Supreme Court (in the U.S.; Queen's Court in Great Britain), you've essentially come to the Most Credible statement of what the Law Means; but the court cannot decide what the Law is--it cannot legally make law, only interpret it.

The place of precedent lies here: whatever decisions have been made in the past concerning what the Law means, the current decision should be consistent with them. In essence, the exercise of interpretation defines the meaning of the law itself, and future interpretation must remain within those definitions. In that sense, the exercise of credibility "creates law".

Bringing it back to the game, it is the referee who determines what he thinks must be happening, based on his understanding of the rules. Once he has decided how the rules (and setting, et cetera) apply, he is as locked into that as everyone else.

But we might say that the rules have Authority because they define how the game is played, and the referee and players have Credibility because they interpret that definition and apply it to the details.

Or maybe I should just go to bed and not get so esoteric at this hour of the morning.

--M. J. Young

Valamir, Pag, maybe Walt,

I'd love for y'all to give examples of game mechanics doing what you're saying they do, cuz I'm drawing a blank.

Or maybe we should focus on my point 1 (credibility is given or whithheld on a case-by-case basis by the listener, never held by the speaker) instead of my point 4. I think that's where the disagreement actually lies. A system cannot hold credibility if all credibility is always contingent.

At any moment, in any game, the players can agree to ignore or override or simply not enact the system, and the system gets no vote.

-Vincent

You've nailed my exact point of divergence, Vince. I agree with the principle of credibility you outline, just not the specifics. Since credibility is always given or witheld by the listener, it doesn't make sense to me to say that a system has no credibility - It has whatever credibility we give it. IMV, credibility is given to a system when a group decides to use it. So, credibility *is* given by the "listeners," but not always on a case by case basis. It can be given in a lump before the game starts.

Once the system has been given credibility in this way, an individual player can't simply ignore it; doing so is a major breach of social contract. The players *as a group* can "vote down the system," but IMO this isn't an example of instant in-Credibility, it's a poorly defined social contract.

Frex: Mike, Bob, and I are talking about what to play in the next indie-netgaming Monday night IRC game. We decide to play D&D. This decision is a single-cell social contract: an agreement to abide by the rules of D&D. If I decide that my character can carry as much as he wants, regardless of encumberance, then the other players can call me out; I've infringed on the credibility given to the system by the social contract. But suppose Bob and Mike agree with me, as a group we "vote down" the encumberance rules. You might see this as the system having no credibility, but I see it as a poorly defined social contract. We think we've agreed to play D&D, but what we've really done is agree to play D&D without the encumberance rules. We've still given the system credibility by agreeing to use it. We've just added a clause that part of the system gets thrown out. The part we agree to use still has credibility.

Well, I wouldn't say that the system has no credibility...it just has less credibilty after the encumberance decision. Perhaps it does mean that our initial social contract has less credibility.

Or perhaps that we've refined the contract to be clearer about our intent.

OT: What are we doing for the Monday Indie Netgame, continuing Universalis (my vote)? or did someone want tostart something else? (...and if no one shows Mike I'd be up for continuing that Synthesis demo) {reply to e-mail please}

Sometimes a flexible approach to system is a feature of the social contract, not a failure or a vagary. The long-term game I'm playing right now started with: "We have a strong setting, strong situation, characters with potential, and compatible approaches to color. What shall we do for system?" "Dunno, let's start playing and see what happens." It's worked just fine.

I'm cool with "systems have credibility," as long as it's understood that it's shorthand for "players' assertions in accordance with system have credibility."

-Vincent

M. J. Young wrote: At trial, the judge is the Finder of Law. When that question is raised, he looks at the law first. (He also looks at precedent, which I'll get to in a moment.) He then says, "This is what I think the Law means, and this is how we will continue." The judge is granted the power to make that decision; at that point, everyone must proceed on the basis that this is what the law means.

lumpley wrote: I'm cool with "systems have credibility," as long as it's understood that it's shorthand for "players' assertions in accordance with system have credibility."

Interesting that Nathan brings up computers. Assuming that CRPGs are RPGs for purposes of this discussion, then the system is either a non-human entity with credibility as I cannot play outside of the framwork presented (if I go out of the way to reprogram the game, then I'm just playing with myself), or it's a human. I don't think that this is an argument for non-human sentience or anything, so I'll go with the first, and support Ralph in this case. At best a computer system is a proxy for the designer.

OTOH, this could simply be proof that CRPGs are not RPGs. :-)

Mike

This is easy and not very nuanced.

You've got some players at a table. Player A says: "Mitch picks up the can of peaches."

Two things can happen.

a. All the players agree that Mitch indeed picks up the can of peaches. They all update the situation in their imaginations so that their imaginary Mitch has picked up the imaginary peaches. The game goes on from there.

or b. At least one of the players can disagree that Mitch picks up the can of peaches. Player B might say: "No way! I get to say what Mitch does." Or she might say: "Are you mad, mad? Mitch has already met his Encumberance Threshhold! You'll give him a hernia!" Or she might say: "Augh! You're breaking my SoD! You've never played Mitch as a can-picker-upper before!" Or she might raise any of a bazillion other objections, doesn't matter. What happens is, the game pauses. Does Mitch pick up the peaches? Nobody knows! Everybody's imaginations are stuck in an unresolved place.

So the players need some way to come to consensus and move on. They might decide to use a GM, they might decide to use mechanics with numbers, mechanics without numbers, proprietorship a la Scattershot, bribes, bullying, rock-scissors-paper, who's whose lovers, who bought the pizza, or plain old everyday discussion, negotiation and compromise. All serve the same purpose, which is to make sure that everybody agrees that what happens, happens.

Because until every single player agrees whether or not Mitch has picked up the damn peaches, the game is hanging.

-Vincent

That is, of course, absolutely true, and well said.

My only caveat/addition to it would be that the players (in whom the ultimate credibility rests) elect to cede some portion of their credibility to a mutually agreed upon system of arbitration. That system of arbitration's primary purpose is to decide whose credibility "wins" when there is a dispute over the state of a can of peaches.

That system of arbitration may involve any or all of the following: Gamemasters, written rules, unwritten social contracts, any of an infinite variety of "mechanicss" often embedded within written rules.

This choice imbues these things with a Credibility of their own (borrowed from the players) greater than they would have without the player's willing acquiessance. In the case of a gamemaster, it imbues that player with more Credibility than he would otherwise have as an "ordinary" player. In the case of a rule book and mechanics, it imbues those things with Credibility that otherwise they wouldn't have at all.

However, once so imbued, the Credibility can only be revoked from these things in one of three ways. 1) Cooperatively and full cooperation of the other players to reach a new standard of agreement on the cedeing of Credibility. 2) Disruptively through arguement, force of will, or other techniques designed to reassert a portion of a player's Credibility that he'd previously ceded (Cheating would be one form of this). 3) By walking away and refusing to participate, one can ultimately always get ones Credibility back.

My points above about rules having their own Credibility, is really nothing more than saying that once players have agreed to cede some of their Credibility to a set of rules (and even the Game Master cedes some Credibility to those rules) those rules have and enforce that Credibility on their own. By this I mean to say that the players, once they have agreed to follow the rules, cannot choose later to NOT follow the rules unless they use one of the 3 methods above. The degree to which option 1 can be used to quickly and easily alter the players relationship to a set of "endowed" rules depends on the circumstances under which the initial endowment was made. Some groups will initially plan to "play by the letter", others will take a more liberal approach towards winging it, others will cede to the player elected as Game Master the ability to decide. But once those parameters are established, changing them is often not an easy thing.

Further, the actual act of cedeing Credibility and endowing a rules set with Credibility is most often nothing more complicated than sitting down at the table and agreeing to play. Much dysfunctional play can easily be seen as players differing after the fact on how much or how little Credibility they ceded at the beginning. Similiarly discussion about Social Contracts can really be seen as a more formalized attempt to identify this process.


That leads me to two final points. One: Seen in this light Universalis can be seen as nothing more than a system for overtly regulating Credibility, where Credibility is NOT ceded to a Game Master, or even much in the way of rules, but rather is measured and spent directly in the form of Coins. Coins in Universalis are simply unites of Credibility. Not surprising that I immediately took to your comments on Credibility Vincent.

Two. This entire discussion really addresses one of the Larger Role Playing Boxes that Ron often refers to. It really screams for being written up and posted as a formal article on the site as perhaps the first rigorous definition of that larger box we've had here. Given the tie in to Universalis I mentioned above...I'm strongly tempted to make this an Essay for our web site.

lumpley wrote: Because until every single player agrees whether or not Mitch has picked up the damn peaches, the game is hanging.

Valamir wrote: ...the players (in whom the ultimate credibility rests) elect to cede some portion of their credibility to a mutually agreed upon system of arbitration.

I would agree with you Fang in that I think it is a quibble, although for these purposes I have no problem seperating Credibility from from authority to grant Credibility (I think MJ suggested this earlier) if that makes the concept easier to understand...it doesn't really to me but YMMV.

I wouldn't agree with the logic you use to support that, however. I believe that systems DO make statements...quite frequently.

Player: I shoot the bad guy
GM: Roll to see if you hit
<roll> "nope you missed"

The question becomes: who said "nope you missed".

Well obviously, the physical act of speech not being possible for a bound pile of wood pulp, the GM actually vocalized the words...but I would contend that in this the GM was merely translateing a statement being made by the rules.

This is not a case of the following, as your interpretation of Credibility (and Vincents initial thoughts in the first post would imply) of.

Player says "I shoot him"
GM says "No you miss"
System decides whose version happens.

The GM in this example (and indeed one would argue for all cases in which the GM's role is as impartial referee) has no particular desire for the PC to either miss or hit. The GM is merely reporting the results as determined by the system.

In other words, the system most definitely made a statement. That statement was "you missed". The GM merely translated that statement from numbers/charts/etc. into speech and vocalized the effects to the other player...but it was the system making the decision.

As far as I'm aware, systems make no 'statements.'

Valamir, I especially agree with your point about dysfunctional play.

I kept meaning to mention Universalis specifically, but never quite managed to. My (partial) game Before the Flood is another game that specifically and overtly apportions Credibility.

But I think my terminology might have come pre-mangled. I mean I've been pretty sloppy about it.

I'd like to adopt Fang's use of Authority and Credibility.

Mike, I think your split game is an interesting case of "the game is hanging." Play proceeds without consensus, sort of; eventually, it'll be resolved or the game will crash, right?

Or I suppose that as future events make the can-of-peaches issue less relevant, parallel histories might develop. The game goes on, moves on to next week's crisis, eventually the game group just laughs about it without ever resolving the difference. Bob always maintains that Mitch ate the peaches, others always maintain that he didn't, and ultimately, so what?

Interesting.

Valamir again, and Walt (as it happens),

Player: I shoot the bad guy.
GM: Roll to see if you hit. [Roll indicates a hit.] Nope, you miss.
Player: Dude! I saw the roll. Are we playing by the rules or not?

The GM makes the statement. The game mechanics are an Authority that any player can use to support or refute statements.

Another:
Player: I shoot the bad guy.
GM: Roll to see if you hit. [Roll indicates a miss.]
Player: I hit anyway. That cool with y'all?
GM and Other Players: Sure. We hate that guy.

The reason that "Roll indicates a miss" isn't an assertion is that the system has no real vote in whether the shot hits or misses. In my example 2, the system isn't a holdout player who needs to be convinced, it's an Authority the players agree to ignore. You can't treat a real player that way.

Edited in: Although, outvoting one player and going on over her protests, leaving her to mutter and gripe and finally give in because it's not worth blocking the game for, is a perfectly valid and pretty common consensus-building technique.

-Vincent

I see what you're saying Vincent, and as I mentioned to Fang, I have no real issue with labeling it that way...but I would caution you in the presentation of your examples.

I suspect you're embedding a bias towards willingness to over ride rules as written into your thesis. I'm thinking that this natural tendency in your own gameing (caveat: conjecture by me based on my sense of your play from various posts) to prioritize player desire over rules dictates might be leading you to demphasize the importance of the rules ability to make statements.

I know of and have played with groups who would not only disagree with your assertion that the rules don't get to vote, but vehemently declare that ONLY the rules get to vote. That once you decide to play, you agree to abide by the rules and at that point players have ceded almost ALL of their Credibility to the Rules and GM, with players no longer making statements but rather asking permission.

Just a note of caution that would be careful how much you overtly demphasize the importance of rules. From my perspective the rules have exactly as much Credibility (or Authority if you prefer, my initial reaction was to replace the term Credibility with Authority anyway) as the players imbue them with, but once so endowed, the rules can be their own entity to be abided by as sacred writ.

In other words an initial rather than ongoing transfer of power.

Hi Walt, Ralph,

Just to quibble again.

I stand by my statement:

Le Joueur wrote: As far as I'm aware, systems make no 'statements.'

Valamir wrote: I wouldn't agree with the logic you use to support that, however. I believe that systems DO make statements...quite frequently.

Player: I shoot the bad guy
GM: Roll to see if you hit
<roll> "nope you missed"

The question becomes: who said, "nope, you missed."?

Valamir wrote: In other words, the system most definitely made a statement. That statement was "you missed". The GM merely translated that statement from numbers/charts/etc. into speech and vocalized the effects to the other player...but it was the system making the decision.

About systems making statements wfreitag wrote: Ah, but they do.

[Pulls out 1e AD&D Players Handbook, opens a page at random...]

"A score in excess of the adjusted base chance indicates the thief has slipped and fallen. (Your referee will inform you of what amount of damage has been done from the fall.)"

When this event transpires, the player, presumably, made the credible statement that the character was attempting to climb the wall. The GM is explicitly ceded credibility by the system to make a statement concerning what amount of damage has been done. But who made the statement that the character slips and falls?

wfreitag wrote: One could answer, "the participants collectively, by virtue of having ceded a portion of credibility to the system via their social contract at the outset of play." My alternative answer, earlier in this thread, was "the individual player, by means of projection of his statement (of intention to climb the wall) through the outcome-selection filter of the system."

wfreitag wrote: And the gamemaster? It's certainly traditional for the GM to be ceded credibility to override the statement "the thief slips and falls" or replace it with a different statement. But if the GM does not do so, does it make any sense to regard "the thief slips and falls" as originating from the GM or resting on the GMs credibility, just because he could have done so? I'm not convinced.

In the end it might just be easier and more meaningful to say, "the system did it."

Computer systems do speak. Actual words sometimes, but usually just non-verbal statements about success and failure, and location and such. But they are never violable statements. If you miss in a game of Everquest, you miss, and the players have no say at all. They cannot coutermand the system in any way. If one were to do that one would be playing in just as dysfunctional a manner as I described above.

Mike

Le Jouer wrote: "the system modifies your statements (at your complicity)."

wfreitag wrote:
"A score in excess of the adjusted base chance indicates the thief has slipped and fallen. (Your referee will inform you of what amount of damage has been done from the fall.)"

I was going to stay out of this, but...

Ultimately, the game itself amounts for jack. All the guidelines that govern the way the game is played (whether they are written down or not) help form the social contract that provides guidelines for play. Just because D&D lists how to resolve specific actions doesn't make those rules any more real than the basic politeness that keeps players (okay, most players) from throwing cheese doodles at the GM. It's all a bunch of social norms.

Therefor, the social contract only has the power that the players give it. Someone has to be the executor of the contract and make sure everyone abides by the rules (this person is usually the GM). If the gamebook says the thief falls and takes x damage, the player might go:

"That's BS. I think the thief should fly away and become a hippogriff."

Now, this wouldn't normally be allowed by the social contract (since all the players have agreed to abide by certain norms while playing the game), but if the player can build a consensus or majority on this issue, he can push this idea through and CHANGE THE SOCIAL CONTRACT. The thief suddenly flies off and becomes a hippogriff, and there's nothing wrong with that.

News flash: THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME! Social contracts are constantly changing. Maybe not as dramatically as having theives suddenly able to fly, but, fairly often, the GM and players negotiate their way through sticky situations that aren't completely covered by the rules.

<Example>

GM: "Okay, Sampson rolls down the mountainside and takes N damage."

PLAYER: "No way! Sampson's wearing padded armor, which would reduce the damage by X!"

GM: "Armor doesn't protect against falling damage. You know that."

PLAYER: "Yeah, but he's not really falling. He's rolling. It would definitely protect him some, right?"

GM: "Well, okay... some. Subtract half of X."

</Example>

Ultimately, what this means is that the rules are, at most, suggestions of social norms that players should abide by during the game. They're certainly not written into the fabric of the universe, and don't mean jack without people supporting them. They certainly can't resolve actions on their own, like some automated scoring device. This is make-believe, after all, so all that matters is what you believe happened, not what the rules spit out.

YOU have to make it real.

Later.
Jonathan

P.S. YMMV, of course. This is just my personal rant :) The game-as-social-contract POV has been heavily on my mind lately.

Emily Care wrote: [When the system returns a numerical result, a human has to translate it into a narrative of events. That's where/when the statement happens.

In computer games, the computer makes all the statements and the human playing chooses among them. All possible actions and outcomes are predetermined, and you can only take part in a CRPG within a scripted set of circumstances. This is quite unlike rpg.

Hey Jonathan. For the record, I agree with you. But there is a sizeable portion of the gaming world for whom your dismissal of the importance of the rules is complete heresy. They may decide to change a rule they don't like with a house rule, but that's merely replaceing one rule with another. The idea of actually ignoring a rule in game is detestable.

In other words, while its perfectly natural for us "players drive the game" types to view rules with the simple knowledge that we have the power and the rules are just so many words unless we choose to enforce them, that that is a bias that far from universal.

I think Vincent has hit on a great way to describe the interaction of players and GMs and the game system in a way that can be applied to all roleplaying games (based on how much Credibility/Authority is ceded to who and when, etc.

Therefor I recommend against building too much personal bias towards the role of rules into the concept. There are many for whom the rules are more important than the opinion of any of the players.

And Fang...not to belabour our quibbling to much, but I would say that game systems (i.e. the sum of the contents of a book between two covers) make proactive as opposed to reactive statements as well.

"Elves are good with bows and swords" is a proactive statement that comes directly from the D&D PHB. "Druids are always Neutral" is another.

So I still believe that what is going on with regards to system is players endowing the system with a portion of their "ability-to-make-game-related decision-power-whatever-you-want-to-call-it". Until player revoke all or some of that power via one of the 3 methods I outlined above, the rules DO have real power and legitimacy as a sovereign entity in the game.

Jonathan, I absolutely concur with your comments on changing social contracts and believe it occurs 1) within the 3 methods I outlined above, and 2) to an extent and frequency and timing completely dependent on how the rules were endowed to begin with.

By number 2, I mean some groups will negotiate through the instance with interaction between GM and players. Some will handle it through GM fiat with no player consultation. Some will handle it by spending an hour pouring through the rule book looking for an obscure rule.

All of these possiblities (and more) are 100% describable in terms of the amount of their own Credibility/Authority that the player have ceded to the GM and to the rules when they first sat down to play.

Fang wrote:

wfreitag wrote:
<snip> My alternative answer [to the question: whose credibility underlies the statement "the thief slips and falls"?], earlier in this thread, was "the individual player, by means of projection of his statement (of intention to climb the wall) through the outcome-selection filter of the system."

Which I read to mean that the player makes the statement as modified by the system. It's still only the player making the statement.

Mike Holmes wrote:

Emily Care wrote: When the system returns a numerical result, a human has to translate it into a narrative of events. That's where/when the statement happens.

Or it doesn't. Lot's of games I've played in go like this:

Bob: I'm going to attempt to pick up the can of Peaches.

-Bob rolls, examines the dice, sees that he's succeeded.

Bob: Now I go to the table and open the peaches.

Note, that Bob did not say he "was" picking up the peaches, and nobody ever said that he had done so, the dice said that he had, and everybody understood. And accepted the systems credibility, tacitly.

Mike Holmes wrote: I think that people are again applying their norms to play in coming up with these definitions....

I truely feel that there is a bit of Frankenstien complex going on here.

Valamir wrote: And Fang...not to belabor our quibbling to much, but I would say that game systems (i.e. the sum of the contents of a book between two covers) make proactive as opposed to reactive statements as well.

"Elves are good with bows and swords" is a proactive statement that comes directly from the D&D PHB. "Druids are always Neutral" is another.

Valamir wrote: So I still believe that what is going on with regards to system is players endowing the system with a portion of their "ability-to-make-game-related decision-power-whatever-you-want-to-call-it". ...the rules DO have real power and legitimacy as a sovereign entity in the game.

Valamir wrote: Therefore I recommend against building too much personal bias towards the role of rules into the concept. There are many for whom the rules are more important than the opinion of any of the players.

wfreitag wrote:

Fang wrote:

wfreitag wrote: <snip> My alternative answer [to the question: whose credibility underlies the statement "the thief slips and falls"?], earlier in this thread, was "the individual player, by means of projection of his statement (of intention to climb the wall) through the outcome-selection filter of the system."

Which I read to mean that the player makes the statement as modified by the system. It's still only the player making the statement.

Yes, that's roughly the sense I meant it. And I could end up agreeing with the idea (it was where I started in this thread, after all). But I have a quibble. "Modification" has a broader range than "selection" or "filtering." In order to accept the system as an entirely passive agent in the process of play, I have to believe that the outcome generated was implicit in the player's initial statement.

Which is no problem for "I climb the wall." Any player, even one who doesn't know the rules, is probably aware that climbing walls is dangerous because one might fall.

How about this:

PLAYER: "I search the entire north wall for secret doors."
GM (consults rule book): "That takes thirty minutes total." (Rolls some dice) "Midway through your search, a wandering..." (rolls more dice) "...rust monster enters the room."

Pretty much the same, right? The GM is following the rules and tables as a passive referee, so the statement that "a wandering rust monster enters the room" didn't come from the GM except in the trivial sense of the GM being the one to articulate it out loud after the system determined it. By the theory under consideration, it must have been implicit in the player's statement that he would search for secret doors.

...I don't agree that the act of interpreting a numerical result into a narrated event, within the framework of a set of rules governing exactly that process, makes the GM the originator of the resulting statement. Even if the GM adds a little color to it. (Wouldn't that be just another case of 'modifying' an already established statement? If going from "I search for secret doors" to "a rust monster shows up" is a mere "modification" rather than "the system saying something," then surely going from "the die rolled a two" to "you take two points of damage" doesn't measure up as "saying something" either.)

I offer the agreement to disagree.

wfreitag wrote: Reactive and Prescriptive.

Mike,

I don't really have any basis for an opinion on crpgs. But it seems to me that the program in a crpg isn't a player; rather it replaces the imaginations of the players.

The rule for imaginations is that the players have to agree. The rule for computer programs is that the programmer has to have provided for it (or its component parts).

-Vincent

Oh, boy, this thread has gotten too long; I shall endeavor not to overdo this addition.

I should like to clarify my use of the word Authority. It would be clearer to say that, in my view, the rules are an authority than that they have authority; or said slightly differently, the rules are authoritative. At the beginning of play, the players agree, "We are going to play Little Fears." In doing so, they recognize the Little Fears rule book as the authority that defines how to play the game. They also recognize one individual as being the primary interpreter of that book; I would thus say that this individual is granted credibility, in that whatever he says the rules mean, that is what they mean. Other members of the group are also granted credibility, to a lesser degree, to determine events by applying the rules as they understand them--that is, playing the game.

Valamir wrote: I wouldn't agree with the logic you use to support that, however. I believe that systems DO make statements...quite frequently.

Player: I shoot the bad guy
GM: Roll to see if you hit
<roll> "nope you missed"

The question becomes: who said "nope you missed".

Well obviously, the physical act of speech not being possible for a bound pile of wood pulp, the GM actually vocalized the words...but I would contend that in this the GM was merely translateing a statement being made by the rules.

Valamir later wrote: I know of and have played with groups who would not only disagree with your assertion that the rules don't get to vote, but vehemently declare that ONLY the rules get to vote. That once you decide to play, you agree to abide by the rules and at that point players have ceded almost ALL of their Credibility to the Rules and GM, with players no longer making statements but rather asking permission.

Vincent a.k.a. Lumpley wrote: Player: I shoot the bad guy.
GM: Roll to see if you hit. [Roll indicates a hit.] Nope, you miss.
Player: Dude! I saw the roll. Are we playing by the rules or not?

The GM makes the statement. The game mechanics are an Authority that any player can use to support or refute statements.

Jonathan Walton wrote: <Example>

GM: "Okay, Sampson rolls down the mountainside and takes N damage."

PLAYER: "No way! Sampson's wearing padded armor, which would reduce the damage by X!"

GM: "Armor doesn't protect against falling damage. You know that."

PLAYER: "Yeah, but he's not really falling. He's rolling. It would definitely protect him some, right?"

GM: "Well, okay... some. Subtract half of X."

</Example>

Ultimately, what this means is that the rules are, at most, suggestions of social norms that players should abide by during the game.

Mike Holmes wrote: Lot's of games I've played in go like this:

Bob: I'm going to attempt to pick up the can of Peaches.

-Bob rolls, examines the dice, sees that he's succeeded.

Bob: Now I go to the table and open the peaches.

Note, that Bob did not say he "was" picking up the peaches, and nobody ever said that he had done so, the dice said that he had, and everybody understood. And accepted the systems credibility, tacitly.

When I modified what Mike Holmes wrote: Lot's of games I've played in go like this:

Bob: I'm going to attempt to pick up the can of Peaches.

-Bob rolls, examines the dice, decides that he's succeeded.

Bob: Now I go to the table and open the peaches.

Joe: Dude, what are you doing? You botched, man--you didn't pick up the peaches!

Walt a.k.a. WFrietag wrote: PLAYER: I search the entire north wall for secret doors.
GM (consults rule book): "That takes thirty minutes total." (Rolls some dice) "Midway through your search, a wandering..." (rolls more dice) "...rust monster enters the room."

Pretty much the same, right? The GM is following the rules and tables as a passive referee, so the statement that "a wandering rust monster enters the room" didn't come from the GM except in the trivial sense of the GM being the one to articulate it out loud after the system determined it. By the theory under consideration, it must have been implicit in the player's statement that he would search for secret doors.

Fang we are at an apparent semantic impasse, and I do not see it as a "chicken/egg" thing.

You say that the system can "affirm" or "deny". How is that not authority? Who cares about who makes the statement? The power in this case derives from the groups decision to abide by the rules. Just as the group can decide to abide by a GM or player's decisions, so too can they decide to abide in the results produced by the system (no matter who pronounces them).

So you can continue to argue about statements if you like. And you'll be right as it is a semantic thing. The question is not, "Can we look at it that way?" We certainly can look at it that way. The question is, "Does it make for a more useful theory to look at it that way?" To which I would answer, no, not at all. It makes complete sense and is very useful to look at the rules as another entity which the players can place credibility in.

People keep saying that the rules are something that people derive their credibility from. But isn't that the case with all credibility. It is all derived from the participants supporting each other. How is this different substantively from any other participant in the game?

Mike

wfreitag wrote:
Reactive "system statements" are player statements ceded credibility during play (with modification or filtering) by the system.

Prescriptive "system statements" are author/designer statements encoded in the system, ceded credibility in play by the GM.

Mike Holmes wrote: I truely feel that there is a bit of Frankenstein complex going on here. That people are responding negatively to the idea of being controlled by a machine or mechanic...(snipped)

I was thinking about this last night, and a quirky little example occured to me. Bear with me a moment, it will all make sense in the end (I hope).

Take a kingdom. In this kingdom there is a noble. The noble has a tremendous amount of power and authority. The noble appoints a Sheriff (a Shire Reeve). He vests this sheriff with the authority to collect taxes and round up people who break the Nobles laws. The sheriff himself is not the source of his own power. He holds power only because he is acting in the name of the noble, who is the source of his power. But once appointed he is free to do pretty much whatever he wants.

He can squeeze the people for additional taxes (because what ever he collects in excess of what is expected he gets to keep) he can knock heads, and pretty much do as he likes.

Until the noble decides he doesn't like what the sheriff is doing, at which point the sheriff might amend his behavior to keep the noble happy or risk being given the boot and replaced with a new sheriff. But until that happens the sheriff is the man and all the people of the shire go out of their way to do what he says and avoid crossing him.
[/metaphor]

For those waiting for a translation:

The Noble represents the players, the source of all power.
The Sheriff is the game rules.
The Sheriffs behavior is the game rules telling the players what is and isn't allowed.
The Shire people are the players in another form, the form they agree to submit to when they (as the Noble) put the sheriff in charge.

Point of this being to illustrate my view that the rules actually do have real power and real authority until such time as the players (as nobles) revoke it. Its not an illusionary semantic the rules are just a filter with no actual importance thing. The rules have real power and real authority and (I would say) real credibility, because the player have vested those things in the rules until such time as they take them back. The rules are "acting in the players name" so to speak just as the sheriff acts in the nobles name, and because the players have credibility...so does the system.

One thing I like about this illustration is that is also illustrates a common source of discontent in play groups. That being when 1 (or a few) players act as the noble and choose the system while the rest of the players get to only be the shire folk who are expected to submitt to the system.

Anyway...kind of silly, but I thought I'd share it.

Thanks for the reply Mike,

Mike Holmes wrote: Fang we are at an apparent semantic impasse, and I do not see it as a "chicken/egg" thing.

You say that the system can "affirm" or "deny". How is that not authority?

Mike Holmes wrote: So you can continue to argue about statements if you like. And you'll be right as it is a semantic thing. The question is not, "Can we look at it that way?" We certainly can look at it that way. The question is, "Does it make for a more useful theory to look at it that way?" To which I would answer, no, not at all. It makes complete sense and is very useful to look at the rules as another entity which the players can place credibility in.

Interesting Fang. I actually view the version that has fewer terms, less need for explicit differentiation, and merely treats the system as another participant (albiet a non human one) at the table, as being the simpler of the two.

Its probably not surprising that you select the other...after all you're the guy who introduces latin into your gaming jargon ;) <big grin>

Thanks Ralph,

A analogy is very helpful.

Valamir wrote: For those waiting for a translation:

The Noble represents the players, the source of all power.
The Sheriff is the game rules.
The Sheriff's behavior is the game rules telling the players what is and isn't allowed.
The Shire People are the players in another form, the form they agree to submit to when they (as the Noble) put the sheriff in charge.

Valamir wrote: Point of this being to illustrate my view that the rules actually do have real power and real authority until such time as the players (as nobles) revoke it.

Valamir wrote: It's not an illusionary semantic the rules are just a filter with no actual importance thing. The rules have real power and real authority and (I would say) real credibility, because the player have vested those things in the rules until such time as they take them back. The rules are "acting in the players name" so to speak just as the sheriff acts in the Noble's name, and because the players have credibility...so does the system.

Fewer terms? Chicken and egg? Simpler model? Practical utility? Agree to disagree?

Guys, it's about what happens at the gaming table. I'm not theorizing. I'm describing.

Nobody's put forward an example of a system making a statement. Walt and Valamir have put forward examples of players making the statements that the system recommends, and Mike has put forward an example of the system supporting an implication of a player's statement.

There might be good reasons to "think of it as though" the system is a fifth player at the table. Dunno. There are certainly good reasons not to, the first being that it's not true.

If the new topic is "is Vincent's descriptive level useful to game designers?", then let's take it to another topic. If it's "are there good reasons to think of the rules as an additional player, even though they aren't?", then ditto. The topic here is, to paraphrase my original points:

- Nothing's true in the game until a. a player says it and b. all the players agree that it's true.
- System, mechanics, GMs and so on are all just ways to get the players to all agree that things are true.

If you want to refute those, stick around, and come up with some good examples.

-Vincent

Le Joueur wrote: That is Authority, but not a 'statement' from my perspective. That's why I separated Authority from Credibility in the first place.

lumpley wrote: The topic here is, to paraphrase my original points:

- Nothing's true in the game until a. a player says it and b. all the players agree that it's true.
- System, mechanics, GMs and so on are all just ways to get the players to all agree that things are true.

If you want to refute those, stick around, and come up with some good examples.

-Vincent

Mark,

My bet is that the other side will claim that there is an implicit statement amongst the players that agreeing to playing Traveller means agreeing that all the information in the sourcebooks is true. And that as such only upon utterance of said statement implicit in the agreement to play Traveller, that this is where the "player said" comes in.

But I'm on you're side. That seems a long way to go just so that we can say that the text is not an agent in determining in-game truth. Good example.

Mike

Mark D. Eddy wrote: In a game of GURPS Traveler, the rules say that a Vargr is a canid of a height of roughly 5'6". So Vargr exist in a game of GURPS Traveller, whether the players talk about it or not.

Mike Holmes wrote:

Le Joueur wrote: That is Authority, but not a 'statement' from my perspective. That's why I separated Authority from Credibility in the first place.

You mean why I separated them in the first place.

Mike Holmes wrote: I suggested the Authority/Credibility split. Authority being what agent has power derived from the participants, and Credibility being the willingness of the participants to accept a particular decision made by any agent at the moment it's made.

Mark,

Nice. Excellent example.

So that leaves us, as far as I'm concerned, with:

- Nothing's true in the game until all the players agree that it's true.
- System, mechanics, GMs and so on are all just ways to get the players to all agree that things are true.

In removing a. from my first point I've implicitly added:
- The game (meaning System, Setting, Situation, Color, Character) can make assertions, which the players then may or may not make true by their assent.

Cool with everybody?

Some of you have been saying this all along. I wasn't convinced until Mark's example.

-Vincent

Le Joueur wrote: I don't think Credibility is the willingness, but the result of the willingness of the participants. Because you're willing to believe, I have Credibility. Like I said, power from the participants to their statements; no agent needs be conceptualized. Otherwise an agent must be invoked for each statement, if only tacitly; "I get up," rules consulted, "okay." I say the agent is the maker of the statement and the Authority passes Credibility to them implicitly, without interference.

Note: Quote edited for relevance to my next point.

lumpley wrote:

- Nothing's true in the game until all the players agree that it's true.
- System, mechanics, GMs and so on are all just ways to get the players to all agree that things are true.

In removing a. from my first point I've implicitly added:
- The game (meaning System, Setting, Situation, Color, Character) can make assertions, which the players then may or may not make true by their assent.

Cool with everybody?


-Vincent

Oh no. The GM is most definitely a player.

-Vincent

Mark D. Eddy wrote: Note: Quote edited for relevance to my next point.

lumpley wrote:

- System, mechanics, GMs and so on

I'm unable to put a finger on it, but it feels like there may be an implicit statement that "the GM is not a Player" in your two premises.

contracycle wrote:

Mark D. Eddy wrote: In a game of GURPS Traveler, the rules say that a Vargr is a canid of a height of roughly 5'6". So Vargr exist in a game of GURPS Traveller, whether the players talk about it or not.

I disagree. The players may choose to talk about it and agree that Vargr do not in fact exist. This would not alter their independant existance in a physical product - but it would alter their existance in an actual game.

I think the as-writ rules have a "default" credibility; but it can easily be overuled by the participants. at may be that such a decision by one group would lower their credibility in the eyes of other Traveler players, though.

lumpley wrote: Oh no. The GM is most definitely a player.

-Vincent

"Having a GM" is my preference.

- System, mechanics, having a GM, and so on, are all just ways to get the players to all agree that things are true.

But WHOO! Are we there?

-Vincent

So are you going to write this up as an article now?

BTW, in order to avoid confusion I adopt Ron's phraseology when it comes to defining some of hese terms. Namely I say that an RPG has participants some of whom may be GMs and some of whom may be players. This also just happens to work with the Finnish paper's intrerperetation.

I highly suggestadopting said terminology when discussing things on this level.

I included agent to mean any thing that affects the game in any way. Might be useful; not sure yet.

Mike

I'm happy.

--Mark Eddy