I've put this as a separate thread for several reasons:

1. I don't think it's a direct address to Sindyr's original question;
2. I don't think the discussion is really about Sindyr's original question any longer; and
3. Sindyr isn't following that discussion any more anyway.

Definition
The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast = "the GM may be defined as the author of the ongoing story, and, simultaneously, the players may determine the actions of the characters as the story's protagonists" (GNS and Other Matters).

Proposition 1
Defined in its most restrictive sense, the Impossible Thing is indeed impossible. If it is taken to mean, "The GM controls everything completely and the players have complete freedom," then it's meaningless, unless of course you want to take the sort of postmodern approach Mike Holmes mentioned.

Proposition 2
Few games propose TITBB in such terms. Possibly none do. It is possible that close analysis of some "how to play" texts will reveal TITBB, but that remains to be proven (and seems to be the focus of the longstanding thread).

Theorem
As actually stated, the Impossible Thing isn't impossible.

So this is sort of a follow-up to Sindyr's question. Here goes.

1. GM as Author

While the GM is the author of the ongoing story, we cannot assess this intelligently until after the fact. That is, if we are going to talk about "story" as something other than simple events in a row, one damn thing after another, then we are talking about being able to discuss a certain block of events post facto as having some sort of narrative coherence. I think this is what Ron means by an "instance."

Now we really only have two other possible perspectives from which to discuss authorship: before the events happen, and while they occur. In the former case, we're left in a kind of weird atemporal confusion, because we're talking about someone as the author of a story that has not yet begun, which may sound vaguely high-theory cool, but probably doesn't mean a whole lot.

But what much of the debate seems to be about is the idea of GM as author of the events as they unfold right now. Fine, but in that case we're talking about a sequence of statements, not narrative; they must be taken in isolation in both directions, and thus they cease to have specific meaning. This is why Ron wants people not to analyze GNS at a "single choice" level, after all: it's pointless, because you need context in both directions.

And it's the both directions part I want to stress here: you need to know not only what came before the event, but you also need to know where it led; in that kind of total context, you can assess an instance as narrative, or story.

So I'm going to suggest that "the GM may be defined as the author of the ongoing story" must mean this instance-level perspective.

As a corollary, any claim that analysis of a single event demonstrates the impossibility of TITBB is ipso facto incoherent.

2. Players as Determiners

Note that I'm breaking the second phrase into two parts: players as determiners, and characters as protagonists. No fear: I'm not going to sweat the latter part, because I think it's unnecessary.

Okay, so what I'm going to claim is that players can make determining choices at the momentary level, even if the GM is determining things at the instance-level.

Ron has given the example of Michael Corleone having a choice, and choosing to destroy everyone and everything he loves to become the new Godfather. This can and should be analyzed from the character/player perspective: this choice is entirely open. But at what perspective will this choice have meaning?

Consider the film itself. The scene when Michael argues his father's side against Kaye, standing in the road somewhere on Long Island, dressed in a city suit while the autumn leaves fall around them, is the moment when we know he's made his choice forever. Before that, it seemed like maybe he might still choose otherwise. What happened in between? Oh, about 6 months of off-screen time. So when did the player choice happen? Off-screen. Where did the meaning happen? In the setup and the followup.

So suppose you were playing this as an RPG, and by whatever means you get through all that setup. Now the GM says, "How would you like to set up this scene?" (Meaning simply when and where, not what's going to happen.) Player says, "I'm going to talk to Kaye. Rocco, get the car." Michael's player and the GM (as Kaye) play out the scene as we see it.

So did the player not determine this? Sure he did. At that moment, he could have chosen otherwise, but did not.

Now what happens? Well, from there the GM keeps the ball rolling toward narrative closure, encouraging (through whatever means) Michael to keep heading toward "All my moves are made" and the guys kissing his ring.

3. What does this mean?

I'm separating two things that are getting blurred here, and suggesting that in a weird way Mike Holmes is dead on to see this as really a GNS problem. If I understand aright, the whole point of Narrativism is that the players are working on something that under the present definition is traditionally seen as the GM's job: they're trying, from a meta-perspective, to get the whole thing to hang together as a cohesive narrative.

In many games, however, this is seen as solely the GM's job; the players just worry about things from moment to moment, and the GM worries about the grand arc of the thing.

So The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast isn't impossible.

In fact, I'll go further. You could structure an entire game around a weird sort of fate, such that everything you do was already planned, except that nobody in the game (including GM) knows the plan. John Crowley's novel Little, Big works like this. There's a Tale, and everything anyone does is part of the Tale, and everything anyone does is the Right Thing for the Tale because that's the definition of the Tale. As one character realizes, however, that means that if you're not to go crazy, you've got to forget that it's a Tale.

In short, I think TITBB depends upon a false dichotomy, because in order to make it a real critique of some game structures you have to analyze at precisely the level that doesn't work for the models we replace it with.

Any takers?

I've always considered the Players to be authors of the active narrative, while the GM is the author of the reactive narrative. Perhaps that is oversimplifying things, though.

It's interesting, Redcrow, that a lot of games run in precisely the reverse manner. Players react to the GM's plot points - and that's all they do. And that an be a perfectly satisfying way to play.

Chris, I'm going to suggest that The Impossible Thing is also problematical to gamist play. First of all, I think Donjon pretty much establishes that narrative control is a perfectly good source of conflict for gamist play.

Secondly let's imagine the Michael Corleone scene from a gamist perspective. Let's say the gamist point is "Keep Michael Corleone alive for as long as possible". In the course of the game, the players survival strategy changes from 'staying out of the mob' to 'running the mob'. The same choice is made from a gamist perspective.

Now pretty clearly from a narrativist perspective, the GM blocking the player's choice, stopping Michael from becoming the head of the mob, because that's not the story the GM had in mind, is problematic.

From a gamist perpective it's also problematic. The GM's overriding story cuts down on gamist strategy choices.

Gamist choices also create story even if they don't (intentionally) address a Premise in the narrativist sense.

There is an open question as to whether a solution to The Impossible Thing could be found within simulationism, but I suspect that if it can, it's a solution for simulationism in specific circumstances, not simulationism as a whole.

As I've said before (and am continuing to say to Valimir in PM's):

The Impossible Thing was (IIRC) created when there was much debate about whether non-narrativist "protagonized" forms of play were possible. I think it has been established they are.

Therefore, I find the term out-dated.

I believe it has been ret-conned to be (not what certain types of games are based on) but rather The Big Misunderstanding or the Poorly Thought Out Power Split That Causes Trouble--but remember the key to the Impossible Thing (before breakfast no less--the term itself likend the reader to Wonderland's Red Queen) was to use the terms from the GNS essay absurd.

A pretty standard interpertation of the words in much of the 'how to' sections has no inherent contradiction. Since the words themselves are almost necessiarliy vague (since despite The Forge there is no standard jargon for game designers to use to reach a wide audience and the kind of theory used here would send consumers *fleeing*) all readers (myself and TITTBBB crowd) alike must use *some* definition. Why choose a necessiarly broke one? Or do people here believe *most* gaming is dysfunctional?

-Marco

All of these games are based on The Great Impossible Thing to Believe Before Breakfast: that the GM may be defined as the author of the ongoing story, and, simultaneously, the players may determine the actions of the characters as the story's protagonists. This is impossible. It's even absurd.

I'm still of the opinion, and Ralph may well disagree, that all of the misunderstanding on this topic comes down to players not understanding the mindset of the player who wants to play in a Narrativist mode.

We can argue around and around about how common misinterperetation is, but it doesn't seem that anyone is saying it's impossible to read the texts in question and come out with a dysfunctional interperetation. That is, is it possible that some players might read these sorts of texts and interperet that they will have power to make decisions on the sorts of issues that they want to make decisions on (the moral, ethical, emotional yadda, yadda, stuff). And that at the same time these player's GMs might be reading that they are required to provide exactly the sorts of details that makes it impossible for players to make these decisions without the player and GM coming into conflict.

If you admit that this is true, then you admit that TITBB exists. We can discuss til we're blue in the face about how often such interperetations occur, and what the author's intents were, and how often this leads to actual dysfunction, and how many easy to implement ways there are around it. But even if it's rare, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

To many, many players, it's going to be irrellevant. I've said that repeatedly. No, Marco, this isn't meant for the general public. They aren't designing games. It's meant to address the gripes of one group of people who you don't happen to be a member of. But saying that this makes it irrellevant is like someone saying that Racism isn't an issue beacuse one isn't subject to it. Just because it's not an issue for you doesn't mean it's not an issue for somebody.

Players who would prefer Narrativism have suffered because they feel that TITBB promises to provide Narrativism, and, in fact, it usually provides Simulationism. Which means that Sim players can tell the Nar players to shut up and enjoy, because, "Hey, it provides story for me." It's that simple.

Mike

It's the quote, Mike--the one at the end of my last post. I agree that anything can be mis-read (the quoting of my post earlier up). Some people will find themselves making this mistake even as they are unaware of it. It may then cause problems. So sure, a problem like the one you describe exists--I've never disputed that.

What I'm bringing attention to is the following:
1. "that the GM may be defined as the author of the ongoing story, and, simultaneously, the players may determine the actions of the characters as the story's protagonists. This is impossible. It's even absurd. "

[emphasis mine.]

1. Can the GM of a sim-game who sets up situation and adjudicates the response to the players actions be defined as the "author" of the story?

Yes. Insofar as 'story' and 'author' apply to RPG's (and I've had a long and agreeable discussion with Valimir so I know my take on story and author is not some twisted fantasy--if he and I agree even basically on anything it's got legs).

2. Can the player's actions have the dramatic impact on that story that protagonizes them?

Yes, clearly. In a simulationist fashion.

Therefore: not impossible and not absurd.

Pick at term that doesn't make a characture of the person who reads the text in a simulationst fashion. If you have Narrativist leanings, take responsiblity for them when reading.

Call it: The Narrativist Control Paradox. I'll sign to it.

-Marco

What Mike said, I think - personally, I guess I have a somewhat "protective" response to discusions of the Impossible Thing because I was in quite a few games (with different groups, in different geographic locations) that tried to acheive it. Not usually entirely dysfunctional, but ultimately quite frustrating for many of those involved.

And describing those games as TITBB fits. It fits almost exactly - the GM ruled the world, and couldn't take input from the players about that, even if it would benefit the game as a whole. The players ruled their characters, and couldn't take input from the GM and/or other players, no matter how sensible.

I can now imagine that some people might experience NO frustration in such a situation - and I can better understand a few basically happy players in those games.

And . . . these threads talk a lot about how important the "player empowerment" is in avoiding TITBB, but the folks who were ultimately MOST frustrated in the games I'm thinking of were the GMs. Their campaigns could never get to where they wanted 'em to go, because some player eventually derailed things.

So I guess - clehrich, I'm not sure how moment-to-moment vs. grand arc fits at the theoretical level, but as a practical issue, it didn't solve the Impossible Thing for me. Probably because the GM had moment-to-moment stuff he wanted, and the players had grand arc stuff they wanted, and there was no effective way to let that happen.

Gordon

EDIT - re-reading, "get to where they wanted 'em" and "derailed" sound like I'm accusing those GM's of railroading - that's not what I meant. I meant they had a perfectly legitimate and even somewhat group-discussed agenda for play, that got frustrated.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: What Mike said, I think - personally, I guess I have a somewhat "protective" response to discusions of the Impossible Thing because I was in quite a few games (with different groups, in different geographic locations) that tried to acheive it. Not usually entirely dysfunctional, but ultimately quite frustrating for many of those involved.

Gordon

Hi Marco,

Marco wrote: So--you're saying it *can't* work?

Hey Gordon,

It was the part the part of the post that you edited that I keyed on. I read that as an over-controling GM having problems with player-empowerment (and saying that was the power-split referenced by this thread). Your edit makes it clearer.*

I certainly agree that some people have bad ideas about the GM/Player power split. This should make everyone happy.

I don't agree that those bad ideas are the Impossible Thing (see my 2-pt break down of it above)--the baldly stated impossibility of non-narrativist story. Change the term or re-write the definition to include narrativist leanings and I'm fine with it.

As it stands, the text of the Impossible Thing is, IMO, misleading.

-Marco
* the "some people might have fun with this" was filed in the "some people might have fun with anything" folder, unfortunately--but that sentiment gets tossed around here from time to time.

Marco,

That makes sense - I thought I got that edit in before anyonme could have read the msg, but you must be quick . . .

I feel like we've hijacked clehrich's attempt to add moment-to-moment vs. grand arc as factors in TITBB - like I said, moment-to-moment vs. grand arc doesn't seem to "fix" anything about TITBB to me, and that's what I can contribute there.

As far as I can tell, everyone's in pretty close agreement except for the old "what is S/story in an RPG?" sticking point with the Impossible Thing, and that's being addressed elsewhere . . . maybe clerich's scope issues are useful when thinking about story?

Off to read other threads,

Gordon

clehrich wrote: "the GM may be defined as the author of the ongoing story, and, simultaneously, the players may determine the actions of the characters as the story's protagonists"

As actually stated, the Impossible Thing isn't impossible.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: And describing those games as TITBB fits. It fits almost exactly - the GM ruled the world, and couldn't take input from the players about that, even if it would benefit the game as a whole. The players ruled their characters, and couldn't take input from the GM and/or other players, no matter how sensible.
...
Nar Story, created by everyone during play, cannot happen in the presence of TITBB. Some forms of Sim story are greatly impeded by a too-extreme application of division implicit in TITBB, but some Sim styles can handle it - and given some tastes (that want some form of that GM/world, plyer/character division, for whatever reason), they HAVE to handle it. And can, and do.

So - taking away the possibly (and quite reasonably) seen-as-insulting "I know something about your game you don't" tone of "you can't be doing that" . . . whenever we encounter a strong GM/world, player/character control split, isn't it quite right to ask "how are you managing to get story out of that?"

greyorm wrote:

clehrich wrote: "the GM may be defined as the author of the ongoing story, and, simultaneously, the players may determine the actions of the characters as the story's protagonists"

As actually stated, the Impossible Thing isn't impossible.

One cannot determine the result of a story's protagonists when someone else is determining the result. Period. This is simple damn logic, folks.

"My actions here make a difference to the ultimate direction of play."
"My actions here do not make a difference to the ultimate direction of play."

OK - for the purposes of the argument here, can someone answer this from a simulationist standpoint.

I'm totally buying the GM controls the world; player controls the character split.

Let's focus only on situation. I'm presuming in the above, the GM proposes the situation. Who disposes? Who creates the outcome of the situation?

Is it possible to suggests that the GM controls the outcome of the situation AND the players control their characters actions?

My take is that the players control the outcome of the situation. The GM adjudicates the results of actions, yes, but not resolution (of scenes).

I *just* had a lengthy discussion with Valimir about that--but, again, my last posted example in Actual Play ( http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=3308&highlight=marco) is, I think, an exemplary example--which was why I posted it.

Mike and Ralph both thought I wasn't clear about who was making the decisions. There's discussion--if it's still unclear, we can discuss it elsewhere (PM, another thread, whatever).

-Marco

Marco -

Can you post your take on non-Nar 'author', 'story', and 'protagonist', perhaps in a new thread? It sounds like you worked out something with Valamir (at least on author and story), and it seems to me that would be a good thing for many people to see. Personally, by using all those words in describing the Impossible Thing, I tend to automatically assume "Narrativisit" - but I've been reading the Forge for a long time. And early on, banged my head big-time against Nar Story vs. what I might normally think about as story.

John -

I'm not sure on the details of this one. At the time, we thought of it mainly in terms of PC dynamic -- how to get the PCs to act as a group. I think this was actually the key to making the episode into a story. The story took place in the PCs recognizing the issue, and then interacting to come up with a response. Thus, it was really the group decision-making of the PCs which was key to the story.

Thanks Marco, that clears a lot up for me with regards to the current discussion.

I can't tell you what Ron meant - only Ron can do that - but for me w/r/t The Impossible Thing for the GM to be defined as the author of an on-going story, they would have to be determining the outcomes of the situations, irrespective of player input. Otherwise, to me it's a co-authorship deal.

Yeah, well you could read it that way too. :)

I identify that as the problem here.

-Marco

Marco wrote: As it stands, it's broken: a clearly possible thing being called impossible. It's neither impossible nor absurd unless you read as a Narrativist. It needs to say that.

Raven,

Let me try this out -

The most extreme version of TITBB - which I have seen closely approached all too often - is where the GM doesn't listen AT ALL to the players about the world, and each player doesn't listen to anyone else AT ALL about their character, but everyone expects that they have full control over what happens as play occurs. This can only be closely approached, and everyone can only expect they have total control, because as you say it's an IMPOSSIBLE thing.

This simply can not happen. Taking a whole (what happens in play), splitting it in two (the environment it which it happens and the primary participants in what happens), giving seperate people control that is restricted to those halves (GM/world, player/character), and claiming that they therefore both have total control of the whole, *is* an absurdity. One that has nothing to do with GNS.

I think everyone agrees on this.

But the actual language used in the description is 'author', 'story', and 'protagonist' (instead of total control of a part and the whole). Marco is taking exception to that. For Nar values of 'author', 'story', and 'protagonist', he's (IMO, and I think he concedes) wrong to take exception. For the rest - maybe he's not wrong.

But maybe we need to explicitly acknowldge that first, most obviously logically inconsistent level of the Impossible Thing, that has nothing to do with GNS. A GM isn't totally in control of "what happens" if the players are also partly (never mind totally) in control of "what happens." The lack of precision about what "what happens" means - the fact that the world and the characters are both part of what happens, and therefore no one can be totally in charge of what happens if they're not effecitively in total charge of both those things - is what lets TITBB persist as a supposed ideal. But in that form, it CAN NOT exist.

If acknowledgement of that is what we need - I say, consider it done. I think everyone agrees to it.

The next step is - what does that MEAN? And there we do branch out a bit based on GNS. At least, that's how it seems to me,

Gordon

Greyorm,

Am I off base that you read "the GM is the author and the players are the protagonist" as saying both make the same decision about the same thing?

-Marco (let's start here)

Marco wrote: Am I off base that you read "the GM is the author and the players are the protagonist" as saying both make the same decision about the same thing?

clehrich wrote: TITBB is indeed impossible if certain terms or conceptions are taken as equivalent.

Mike Holmes wrote:

clehrich wrote: TITBB is indeed impossible if certain terms or conceptions are taken as equivalent.

Now, the next point that could be discussed if anyone had any hard data is how often it's problmatic. See, Marco want's to argue that it's the Narrativist player's "fault" for interpereting it as he does. But consider that none of this discussion had ever occured wen most of these text were written. This is a very one sided opinion. Why is your interperetation more correct just because it's the Simulationist interperetation, Marco? Because it's functional? Well, that makes you lucky, not right by default.

Mike

"When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."--Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"

The phrase has come to refer to things that people belive despite their absurdity. So it can only refer to the absurd case, anyhow.

You want it caveated in each case of it's use, that there are interperetations of these absurd things that aren't absurd? Mmm. Ok.

Mike

Actually, as it stands, it's prejorative to the simulationist reader who is told, abruptly that their view-point is absurd--I want that changed.

And as it is, with a 50% hit rate by your and my reckoning, it's just weak, Mike. The words there don't create problems for lots and lots of people and they're told flatly--and with no explanation that the concept itself is absurd? That they're Wonderland's Red Queen for thinking "I don't see anything wrong with that?"

Can you really sign to that? If it was a user interface for a software project you were working on you wouldn't do that.

-Marco

Hi Marco,

Your reading of the text as pejorative is ... well, it seems to be a personal thing. How many times must I qualify a discussion of "story," specifically using you and your posts of play as an example of non-Narrativist fully-legitimate story creation as an example, before you get off this defensive stump?

You know I'm working on three related essays, right? The first one about Simulationism is already up. Oddly enough, all those gut-ripping Sim debates seem to have vanished! Why? Because I took everything said during those debates to heart.

The Gamism one is going to pre-readers this week. The third one will, shock, be about Narrativism, and wouldn't you know it, all sorts of stuff that you, Bruce, and others are talking about now are in it. This very dialogue is getting processed by me, word for word. You're not speaking into a vacuum.

I think the one that's up already demonstrates that I take objections just such as yours into account, and that I'm not afraid to rip up or even abandon aspects of the "GNS and related matters" essay if it seems sensible.

So come on - let down this whole "I'm being marginalized and I won't stand for it!" approach a little.

Best,
Ron

Re: Defensive.

I was a might defensive about being told off by Valimir--(although I found him far more agreeable in PM's). But really, here, the only reason I think people are against amending the text is that it's beein' takin' personal-like.

Far to the contrary, calling someing that's 50% possible The Impossible Thing and then flatly refusing to re-define terms seems to me to be a bit counter-intuitive.

We can agree to disagree but I'd be satisfied if this happened:

1. The Impossible Thing reads something like "The Narrativist Control Paradox: The paradox inherent in the belief that in the Narrativst sense the GM cannot be an the author and the players the protagonists of a story at the same time."

Disavow the etymology that relates to wonderland. Fix the text so it doesn't seem counter-intuitive to the simulationist reader.

2. We resolve the protagonist issue. Can the word protagonist apply to simulationist play characters (seems obvious to me that yes, obviously it can).

"Protagonized" gets sticker--does the invented "protagonized" apply to sim characters? I say it should or else it's really weak.

-Marco

Edited: I'm really very aware that these things are evolving--which is why I'm in on this. Straighten out The Impossible Thing and a whole breed of misunderstanding will get killed off at the source.

Hi Marco,

Workin' on it together, then.

My take at the moment, though, is that it's not a Narrativist paradox - that a person with play-priorities like your own would encounter contradiction as well with the texts I'm objecting to.

Clearly I have only been able to articulate the problem/paradox such that Narrativist-oriented folks can perceive it. That's an articulation issue, I think.

Your comments on the related thread ("textual examples") have clarified for me how I can put it better. Rest assured that you're on the draft-read staff for the first version of the Narrativism essay. Not gonna happen soon, but it'll happen.

Best,
Ron

Hi Ron,

That may be true--but be aware that the text I am refering to (not "texts") is The Forge's statement of The Impossible Thing (in the glossary or the GNS Essay). Not some arbitrarily good or bad game text.

-Marco

Right, I gotcha. My use of "texts" in my post was referring to the game-books, but I know you were referring to my essays. I think we have communicated.

Best,
Ron

In order to help ya out, I've posted my Gaming Manifesto. You can use that to analyze my take on story, protagonist, and author.

-Marco

This Marco-quote is from another thread, but my response seems to fit better here:

Marco wrote: The text of The Impossible Thing (and much game text) invokes the word "protagonist."

Greyorm says "that means the same thing as author." (I guess, that's how I read him--but I could be wrong.)

Gordon C. Landis wrote: This Marco-quote is from another thread, but my response seems to fit better here:

Marco wrote: The text of The Impossible Thing (and much game text) invokes the word "protagonist."

Greyorm says "that means the same thing as author." (I guess, that's how I read him--but I could be wrong.)

How *I* read it (greyorm may or may not agree) is more like this - an 'author' is normally in total control of the protagonists. I mean, I'm aware of (and have experienced) the phenomena (during writting and RPGs) where a character seems to "take on" a life and make choices I didn't expect - but really, that's just me talking to me, somehow.

Gordon

Crimminy, three posts to respond to...well, let's see if I can hit points from all three and sum up where I am with this:

Some time ago over in El Dorado (terms clarification), Walt made the statement, "You can really really drive wherever you want to go while really really obeying all traffic laws." This hit me as a particularly useful analogy.

Consider the basic assumption of a game design incorporating the Impossible Thing:
That the players have control of their guys and (through them) what happens; ie: the players are in charge of their own destiny.
That the gamemaster has control of the setting, the locale, and events that take place within it.

Now, there are a variety of ways to make this work well, which have been discussed at length already (such as Marco's play style), where the GM does indeed control the setting and events, and the players are indeed in charge of their character's own destiny via their reactions to such.

But does this have anything to do, really, with GNS?
A clear example is necessary:
The GM cannot design background & setting "A1: Attack of the Killer Tomoatoes" and leave the players in control. Frex, if the players decide "Hell with these stupid tomoatoes!" then the GM does not control the setting or events of the story, he is not responding to/adjudicating player desires.

Consider adventure modules: if the GM designs adventures (ie: set pieces with NPCs, background motivations and so forth...which are simply modules designed for a specific group) as they are instructed to do in dozens of game texts, they have taken away player control of their destiny by providing pre-rendered situations.

(But isn't that what a GM is supposed to do?!)

Or let's try it this way: "You can do anything you want...but the GM has to plan adventures."
This is TITBB, and this is standard gamer "wisdom." The GM creates a "scenario" or "adventure," creates locales, peoples, events (ie: background & setting). This is all very functional; but you (the player) cannot do anything you want.

This is where the car analogy comes in: you cannot drive wherever you want and still obey all the traffic laws. Something has to give.

The two common solutions to this are for the players to accept they must partake in the GM's adventure and find reasons to do so (or the opposite, being given reasons to do so); or for the GM to accept he must necessarily wing it without any module and adjudicate (not develop) situations arising from player desires.

My point is not that there is an attainable happy medium between these two (for there is), or that these two solutions are also fine (because they are), but that many game texts (and gamers) assume the former but encourage the latter!
Obviously, this does not work. Agree?

Thusly we get into the problem: Metaphors for how the game is played, as has been said.

I think that we might be able to agree that if they are metaphors, they are poorly defined ones, and thus I will put forth that it is their lack of definition which creates TITBB and the even current discussion.

Simply, TITBB, though this fuzziness, thus produces a variety of different play-styles, all various interpretations of what TITBB's metaphors actually mean.

It doesn't matter that someone defines the terms and priorities and thus avoids the impossiblity set up earlier as the most extreme case of TITBB, the very avoidance of the problem through this sort of definition showcases that there is a problem (the act of definition is itself the problem). BUT it is this hunt for TITBB actually at work that is fouling the discussion up -- because, as I've also said before, you'll never find it at work.

We aren't talking about "how my group defines this" -- even though that's exactly what this discussion has now centered upon -- because it is in the act of that definition that the group avoids TITBB. We can say all we want that the "obvious fix to the problem" is to "do this" or "define this as this" or to "split up power thusly." But that is precisely the point. TITBB doesn't so much declare something as it entails a lack of that something -- and hence the filling in done later.

I like Ron's analogy of TITBB being a hinderance to walking through the jungle of gaming rather than being a thicket which must be passed through. It isn't so much a place you can go or be as it is a pair of stiletto heels in the wilderness.

So, no matter how you (Marco or anyone) parse out the actual metaphors of the statement, the idea itself is not workable because of the lack of definition, and more importantly, it is not a GNS issue: it is not a Narrativist Control Problem, because this has nothing to do with Narrativism, as I've shown above with the "adventure module" problem of play -- which is clearly not dependent upon Narrativist definitions to (dys)function.

Back to the car analogy: I want to be a good driver. The problem is that the text tells me that being a good driver requires me to drive anywhere I want and obey all traffic laws. How I decide this works is dependent upon how I parse what it means to be a "good driver."

Some folks will take this to mean: "I obey all the rules" others will parse this to mean "I have never had an accident" and yet others will parse this in other ways. Some people will say that you can be a good driver and drive on the shoulder, others will vehemently disagree with this.

Some will even claim it isn't a problem because of the way they've parsed the text and defined the terms.

So if renamed anything, the Impossible Thing is the Use of Unclear Metaphor. It doesn't "go away" or "become possible" simply because you define the metaphor for yourself or your group. It doesn't affect you any longer because of the act of your definition, but the lack of clarity is still inherent in the item, requring your defintion.

So, the underlying complaint of the Impossible Thing is that game texts do not adequetly address the issues around a shared creative endeavor? And that much of what they do write in an attempt to address those issues really doesn't help at all - in fact, at some intersections of intent, interpretation, and particular-group goals, that text actually ends up encouraging people to do things that aren't even possible?

I agree with that complaint, whole-heartedly. We're probably better off dealing with the complaint than tinkering with the wording of the Impossible Thing.

Gordon

Gordon C. Landis wrote: How *I* read it (greyorm may or may not agree) is more like this - an 'author' is normally in total control of the protagonists

Well, if I read you right, we do agree--on all but one thing (and I think Landis actually said this): 'changing the text of The Impossible Thing.'

It's like 10 words long. If the way I read it makes it The Impossible Thing That Is Actually Possible and you can read all my definitions and not see anything that's *really* wierd (or maybe you do--and we can discuss that) then ... why not change it?

Power-struggles happen in work, in marriages, between friends, on ... ummm ... message boards ... but that doesn't (necessiarly) wreck-em. Not every moment of my gaming history is bliss but it's been a *long* time since a session has degenerated into club-beating (and I'm playing with a new group part of the time right now). If what I think is at least a *fairly* standard reading of TIT, then I'd think people would go "Okay, add some text--at least it'll shut Marco up."

-Marco

I think it has changed, Marco. Sure, maybe not in the original articles, which need to be maintained for historical reasons. But this isn't the first time that this subject has come up before. It has been clarified on at least two other occasions that I'm aware of, and probably a lot more. Those clarifications represent the new definition of the term.

No, a concise update hasn't been posted anywhere. But one can't change posted definitions on a daily basis. Given Ron's statment I'm sure that he's working on recctifying the problem currently.

We could debate the question of how important this topic is (I think it's gotten way overblown), but that would be debating the debate. I can only hopw that some new ideas have arisen from the process of increasing understanding.

Mike

Hey,

Marco, you wrote,

If what I think is at least a *fairly* standard reading of TIT, then I'd think people would go "Okay, add some text--at least it'll shut Marco up."